Gentlemen, and ladies, in case you live on another planet, or never had a Mother, let me remind you that Sunday is that second-most dreaded of holidays.

The first most dreaded of holidays is Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the one holiday that us guys can’t forget without paying for it for the rest of the year until we, perhaps, redeem ourselves the following year.

Mother’s Day is the holiday where both sexes can run afoul of the forget-me-at-your-peril lady in our lives.

And just because the lady in your life may not be your Mother, she’s probably Mother to someone or something, like children, or dogs, or cats, or fish, or the neighborhood.

And she expects to be remembered for that effort.

The range of Mother’s Day gifts never ceases to amaze me.

I had a female friend years ago who had a really bad habit of buying her Mother kitchen gadgets the younger would like to have, hoping for a reciprocal gift at some future time.

I’m not an expert on the female psyche, but a gift of something that means I do more work in less time is not really a gift…it’s still connected to the work I would do as a Mother.

So note to self…don’t purchase kitchen gadgets for Mother’s Day gifts.

I had another female friend who was a bit on the conservative side and would always purchase items of clothing for her Mother that the younger would wear even though Mom was considerably more flamboyant.

So note to self…don’t buy young-adult clothes for retired Mother.

In both cases, Mom would thank the giver and act as though they were the greatest gifts they could have received because, frankly, that’s what Mothers do with their offspring.

And then we come to the guys who just don’t seem to get that the female psyche is way, way different from our own.

There are those of us of the male persuasion that like flowers and candy as a token of appreciation, but let’s face it, those are few and far between. On the other hand, there are a lot of females who love flowers and candy as a token of appreciation.

Don’t do like a buddy of mine once did for Mother’s Day.

Now granted, he had to buy for three ladies. He had to figure out gifts for his own Mother, his wife, the Mother of his children, and for his Mother-in-law.

That would drive me crazy, but not crazy enough for this particular stunt.

Mom-in-law had no male in her life. He had been taken by the Reaper years before and she was perfectly happy living alone.

That meant my friend used to get strange calls in the middle of the day or night to come fix a leaky pipe, re-hang a cherished picture frame, nail the carpet back down, stop the door from squeaking, open a stuck window, you know, the honey-do list we are all saddled with.

No matter where he was, he would drop everything and answer the call. And discover upon arrival that she had no tools with which he could perform said function.

So he bought Mom-in-law a tool box filled with basic hand tools for Mother’s Day so he would have them available when he arrived on a mercy mission.

His own Mother also lived alone on a rather large lot and she would call him when there were no neighborhood boys about to come cut the grass. The problem was that she had no mower.

He would have to go home, load his mower in the back of the truck, haul it to Mom’s house and cut the grass, clean the mower, load it back in the truck and return it home.

So he did what he thought was thoughtful and kind. He purchased Mom a lawnmower.

His own wife was a re-painting fanatic. She would get tired of the colors on her wall and send him to the hardware store for paint and all the accessories needed to repaint a room on a moment’s notice.

She loved to change paint colors, but had as much luck handling a paint brush as a three-year-old with a Sharpie.

But our guy thought he had this one nailed. She was partial to pastels in the blue, brown, green and egg spectrum.

So he went to the local hardware store and bought her eight gallons of paint in her favorite shades. He purchased no-drip rollers, or as close as he could get to no-drip, a selection of paint roller pans, foam edgers and drop clothes so the next time she got a hankerin’ to repaint the living room, he could go play golf and she could stroke the walls to her heart’s content.

Needless to say, none of the gifts went over well.

Guys, here’s the moral of this story.

Think outside your own box. I’m told by Mothers that flowers, candy, perfume and bath soaps are always a good bet.

But if you want to make it to the top of the list…visit the jewelry counter.

At least until the next crisis begins slamming already heavily burdened wallets.

By finally appropriating the first installment of a promised $200 million to help us in developing what has been more than $600 million in wastewater systems, the state stopped all of those in the Cudjoe Regional service area, Lower Sugarloaf to Big Pine, and Islamorada from being forced to shell out full cost for something the state mandated we have in the first place.

The full cost to each property owner could have been in the neighborhood of $20,000 per unit. The state’s money drops that potential bomb a little bit. It will take a concerted effort by all those who need to do so to get the sales tax extension passed in November that will further lift the monetary weights from the shoulders of those last in line.

But right behind dodging this particular bullet, we hope, comes another that is flying in from all angles.

That bullet goes by the moniker windstorm insurance and is being fired by Citizens Insurance, a quasi-state agency originally formed to allow coastal Floridians to meet the insurance needs of bankers and brokers to get money to buy homes.

But because private insurers weren’t happy with making loads of money in Monroe County and none elsewhere, they left the state. Citizens, true to the profit motive that runs any corporation, immediately declared itself a monopoly and tried to jack up rates here by about 200 percent, while leaving the rest of the state, where there was no profit, with miniscule rates comparatively.

The local group Fair Insurance Rates for Monroe successfully fought back that challenge to homeownership in the Keys.

But now, Citizens, pushed by a Governor and Legislature that cares little for the common homeowner, is again trying to divest itself of risk at the expense of Monroe County.

The company’s new move to not insure homes valued at more than $1 million does more damage here that in many other counties because of the high property values we have as a string of islands with limited space in a beautiful sub-tropical climate.

The new re-inspection program for mitigation credits hits many of our homeowners hard because the inspectors know nothing of local building codes, and get paid simply by the number of inspections they do rather than the quality of the inspections they do.

And the inability to not get builder’s risk insurance, a requirement of banks to loan money for construction, slams a hard hand on a local construction industry that was just beginning to get back off the ground after the recession.

And all the while, Citizens leadership wants to continue to raise rates on Monroe County because of our isolated vulnerability.

Increasing rates here will only serve to drive out those residents barely hanging on waiting for the economy to turn, will cease the just-now-returning influx of new homeowners who might be able to squeeze out a mortgage payment, but never be able to cover the extra windstorm rates, and those who are just tired of paying more to live in paradise than our central state neighbors who actually cost Citizens all of its claim money anyway.

We have the most stringent building codes in the state. We have the lowest loss ratio of any area in the state. We pump money into Citizens regardless of the storm season.

And yet we are singled out for unrealistic rate increases.

This has to stop.

The state finally did what was fair and lived up to its promises when it mandated we put in advanced wastewater treatment systems and agreed to pay a fair share.

Now it’s time for fairness to enter the fray again.

We would urge Citizens to fund an actuarial study that will prove we are rated too high a risk. We urge Citizens to compare our loss ratio to anywhere in the state. We urge Citizens to put the burden of financially viable rates on the areas where they are actually losing money instead of the one area where they always make money.

But we can’t wait for the political games to play themselves out as politicians fear the hundreds of thousands of potential voters in areas where Citizens loses money, and discount the 50,000 voters Monroe County brings to the table.

Our county leadership needs to take a hard look at divesting itself of Citizens insurance either by enticing a private company with the windfall profits they’d realize here, or by going the self-insured route with a potential policy pool of about 60,000 homes that rarely, if ever, file a claim.

We would urge the latter.

Something must be done or we will see more empty homes and commercial properties as people throw in the towel and leave our paradise.

The resident at a home on Bahia Avenue heard glass breaking and saw someone peering into his home with a flashlight at 4:15 a.m. He called the Sheriff’s Office to report a burglary in progress.

When Deputies Vaughn O’Keefe and Brian Cross arrived, they began checking the area. They heard a  noise at a home next door to the victim’s. When they went next door to see what made the noise, they saw a man on the property. They confronted him and he fled.

More officers arrived on the scene and began searching for him. Investigations revealed a broken window on the first house and a torn screen and open door on a storage area at the second house.

As the investigations continued, deputies spotted a man walking on a dock; he was soaking wet and claimed to have been lobstering. He was fully clothed; his wallet and a cell phone were in his pocket, soaking wet, along with two prescription bottles, also wet; he had no lobstering tools with him, but was carrying a flashlight. A shoe in the water near his location matched another shoe found near one of the crime scenes. Deputy Cross, who’d gotten a look at the suspect before he fled identified him as the same man.

33 year old Kenneth Sutton was arrested. He was charged with two counts each of burglary, criminal mischief and possession of burglary tools. He was also charged with two counts   possessing controlled substances without a prescription. As he was being arrested and transported, he reportedly became loud and threatening to Deputy O’Keefe. He was warned that he could be charged with assaulting an officer for his threatening remarks. In reply to the warning, he said his remarks “weren’t a threat; they were a promise.”

He was further charged with resisting arrest and he was booked into jail.

Detectives received information about a possible marijuana growing operation at 1301 Grouper Drive. When they arrived at the home, they made contact with the residents. They also spoke with residents of a small efficiency next to the home on the same property.

In the house they found a total of 39 marijuana plants and five pounds of processed marijuana. In the efficiency they found just over a pound of processed marijuana.

Three people were arrested in connection with the operation:

• 45 year old Marcela Delgado was charged with cultivation of Marijuana, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia.
• 29 year old Jose Angel Martinez was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Martinez is currently out on bond for cultivation of marijuana in Miami Dade County.
• 52 year old Jose Luis Diaz was charged with resisting without violence and an arrest warrant out of Polk County for Failure to appear reference Burglary, Grand Theft and Criminal Mischief.

The warrant was served at Lot #4, in Water’s Edge Trailer Park on Laurel Avenue, Stock Island. Inside the home they found  56 year old Ramon Machado, who lives there with his wife. A search of the trailer turned up 13 crack cocaine rocks inside a closet in the bathroom, along with 5.6 grams of marijuana and rolling papers hidden in some clothing.

Machado was arrested. He was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute within 1000 feet of a church (Baptist Church on 2nd Avenue); he was also charged with possessing marijuana and drug paraphernalia. He was booked into jail.

And what started out as a very productive season tailed off to a mediocre one, said Bobby Holloway, owner of Fanci Seafood on Cudjoe Key.

He said the Gulf side catch started good, but tailed off to well below normal from past seasons.

But the Atlantic side catch made up for some of that be being a better than normal year for fishermen.

The lackluster crab season comes on the heels of a productive lobster season that ended in March, leaving local commercial fishermen with another decent year.

“No one knows really why we couldn’t find the crab this year that we have in year’s past. If we could, we could all be rich down here in the fishing industry,” said Holloway. “We think the crabs were out there, they just weren’t appearing in the traps.”

Demand for the succulent crabs remained high throughout most of the season which kept prices to fishermen good until about mid-March when lobster season ended and crab season didn’t fulfill its promise.

The markets will end the season paying about $5.50 per pound for medium claws, $11 per pound for large claws and $15 per pound for jumbo claws, similar to what fishermen were paid last year.

“The price on medium claws always drops toward the end of the season because that’s all the fishermen are bringing in,” said Holloway.

Seafood lovers will be able to get fresh stone crab claws for probably two days after the season ends as the last of the fleet brings home their remaining traps, although a lot of them have already wrapped up their gear for the year, said Holloway.

“And if there are markets that froze some crab during season, they’ll have them for a little while longer,” he said.

Holloway estimated that the crab haul this year was probably about 20 percent below what it was last season.

In the first move, commissioners are expected to approve eliminating the current inspection on building permit program to comply with a state law passed last year that prohibits the practice unless the permit involves the lower level enclosure.

That program has been a contentious one for local contractors who claim that property owners were skipping needed work on their homes rather than undergo a county inspection of the lower-level enclosure even if the enclosure was compliant.

The contractors also claim that work was still being performed but the work was just being done by unqualified or unlicensed contractors who didn’t bother pulling permits to ensure the work was done to county building standards, which are the highest in the state.

But with the state regulating that program out of existence, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the National Flood Insurance Program told county officials they would need to find something to replace the program to continue to ferret out what estimates have placed at 7,000 non-conforming lower level enclosures.

The county’s participation in the NFIP was threatened by the state move. Without flood insurance, lenders won’t write mortgages in the flood-prone county and the county might not be eligible for federal grants or FEMA grants for pre-storm mitigation and post-storm debris removal.

In a related issue, commissioners are expected to conduct a public hearing making changes to the existing flood plain management inspection procedures for lower level enclosures prior to sale of the property.

Under the new guidelines, the county proposes continuing to use the results of that inspection solely for data gathering. In the existing program, the seller or buyer was supposed to file the inspection report at closing. That requirement has been eliminated.

The county has also been using the lack of a transfer inspection to deny future building permits until the transfer inspection takes place, a practice the new proposal eliminates.

In fact, the new proposal does not require that the illegal improvements be removed once the inspection is completed.

Instead it is thought that new buyers will either be caught up in the existing insurance inspection program for those homes that have received a letter demanding that inspection and was never done, or will go through the process at a later date during a remodel or repair from a storm where the overall value of the work reaches 50 percent of the market value of the home.

The new proposal protects the buyer from code action as the result of illegal enclosure improvements, but allows the county to prosecute in two ways the seller; first for not requesting the sale transfer inspection in a timely fashion, which could result in a $2,000 per day fine: and secondly as a misdemeanor offense through the criminal courts.

That language has local legal advocate John November a little hesitant to endorse the new program. November was the primary author of the legislation that outlawed the inspection on permit practice last year.

He said that the retroactive prosecution of sellers might not pass constitutional muster.

The new proposal also outlines remedies a buyer may seek if the property is found to subsequently have illegal downstairs enclosure improvements.

The new proposal also mentions use of the controversial insurance inspection program. That program, started in 2002, was supposed to last just seven years, but is still on the books. FEMA staff claims that the county hasn’t yet completed the program because not all of the 5,800 or so properties notified of a need for the inspection have as yet complied with that request.

According to Growth Management Director Christine Hurley, the county considers its participation in the pilot program insurance inspection to be complete because it has notified all of the properties in question.

FEMA disagreed, however, and instructed the county to continue the program and work up a plan to ferret out the remainder of non-inspected homes.

FEMA hasn’t yet answered the county on its assertions that the pilot program has ended for Monroe, and Hurley says that leaves her unsure whether only those properties previously notified will be part of the continuing insurance inspection program or whether new policy requests will be forced to undergo the inspection.

Commissioners will also hear a proposal that establishes a Certificate of Compliance inspection program that will be voluntary for local property owners.

Those wishing to ensure their homes are FEMA compliant, either for themselves or because they plan to put the home on the market and want to assure buyers that’s the case can request an inspection from the county. If the enclosure is found compliant, the certificate will be attached to the property record card and will outline what was permitted in the enclosure for future buyers.

The new proposal also changes some definitions in the existing ordinance that Hurley says she feels will make the flood plain rules more “homeowner friendly.”

And coming Wednesday, the Monroe Board of County Commissioners is expected to approve two actions that could potentially block the installation of that power grid on the island.

On the agenda Wednesday is a request to approve filing the potential electrification of No Name Key in the Inter-Government Conflict Resolution program. That, says Assistant County Attorney Bob Shillinger could force the utility to the negotiating table to try and work out the differences the county has with the KEYS project.

Also on the agenda is a request to approve filing for an injunction that would stop the installation of power poles on the environmentally sensitive island until some of the county’s underlying legal questions are answered.

Electrification of No Name Key has been bounding around in the courts for more than two decades.

And while the two entities currently are embroiled in yet another round of potential legal stand offs, the matter is still wending its way through the legal system on another front. No Name Key power is also slated to be a topic for consideration when the Florida Public Service Commission meets June 5.

Utility Board Attorney Nathan Eden told members Wednesday that they had really left themselves with little choice but to approve the construction contracts because of the line extension agreement they had approved last month with the No Name Key Property Owners’ Association.

The board approved that extension agreement over Eden’s objection who counseled them to wait until the PSC and the courts ruled on the current matters before them.

Under that agreement, KEYS plans to run power lines to 25 homes of the 43 on the island at the cost of the owners of those properties, estimated to be just over $600,000.

Part of the agreement, however, requires that the NNKPOA acquire the easements necessary to run the power grid at no expense to KEYS.

Part of the grid will have to pass over county-owned conservation lands. The BOCC last year denied the use of those lands for utility easements.

According to Monroe County Land Authority Director Mark Rousch, allowing easements across those particular lots would violate the agency’s enabling legislation as they were purchased using money that specifically prohibits development uses.

The utility board accepted proof of easements from the NNKPOA based on a 1973 document that granted vehicular easements on what are now non-existent roads and weren’t at the time owned by the county. The board also accepted a 1995 deed that granted mutual use easements on some of that land, argued by the property owners that utilities were included because phone lines were installed years before the current land use prohibitions were put in place by Monroe County.

At issue with county officials first is their denial of easements across conservation lands and secondly with county land use regulations that specifically prohibit the extension of commercial power to No Name Key and the other 14 Coastal Barrier Resource System areas in the Keys.

County and KEYS officials had attempted to get those issues clarified but the local circuit court punted the issue to the Public Service Commission, which is scheduled to hear at least parts of the case June 5.

The county has received permission to act as an intervenor in that PSC action.

Opponents of commercial power and the county have appealed that court decision allowing the PSC to take jurisdiction. That appeal hasn’t yet been acted on by the appeals court.

According to Shillinger, unless a court of competent jurisdiction voids the county ordinance prohibiting electrification of the island, county staff will be forced to adhere to those rules.

He claims that means even if the utility puts poles in the ground, the county building department can’t issue permits to the homeowners to hook into those lines due to the prohibition.

A majority of county commissioners have thus far stood firmly behind their land use regulations.

Before the vote, one utility board member announced to the press that No Name Key would be energized by August.

Most involved in the situation believe that only a court ruling will eventually settle the matter for good, but how the entities go about getting that ruling is still caught up in the myriad twists of multiple legal actions.

Last week Monroe County also received a demand notice from anti-power representatives that demanded the county stand by its land use codes and deny building permits and easements to hook the homes on No Name Key into the power grid.

The 43 homes on the island are powered by solar arrays or generators or a combination of the two.