by Linda Grist Cunningham | Oct 9, 2013 |
On Oct. 1, Key West thumbed its collective nose at cruise ships and turned its back on an almost $90 million annual revenue stream. By saying “no” to a feasibility and environmental impact study, voters made it clear: no study; no dredging; no widening; no cruise ships — and while you’re at it no tick-tacky passengers in T-shirts either.
At issue in the grinding, six-month long referendum campaign was whether Key West could eventually widen its channel, which lies within the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary, to accommodate longer, modern cruise ships that are replacing the smaller, older (and less green) ones currently docking in Key West. Without a channel widening, the new ships can’t get into the harbor safely. Not today, or next year, but certainly within two decades, cruise ships won’t stop in Key West.
Now, not everyone who voted against doing a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers feasibility study on widening a mile-long segment of the main shipping channel by 150-feet did so for the same reasons. It was, as they say complicated. The 4,000-plus “no study” voters brought together a quintessentially Key West assortment of the cliched strange bedfellows.
Sincere environmentalists and the semi-unemployed. Wealthy (think rarer than the run-of-the-mill one percenter) second homeowners and political gadflies. Fans of exclusionary zoning and local small business owners. Retirees and energy company and investment executives. The “no study” vote carried every Key West neighborhood to a resounding defeat of the Chamber of Commerce-backed Support the Study political action committee.
Despite outspending its opposition significantly, the Support the Study PAC was unable to convince voters that doing the study did not automatically mean widening the channel. That was, however, the opposition’s message, often couched in hyperventilated advertising that included references to Italy, greedy business owners, dead sea turtles, fat, lazy tourists and the particularly offensive self-made video comparing those supporting the study to Nazis and Hitler.
I supported the study because I think the study would have, for $750,000, given Key West the information it needs to determine its environmental, economic and quality of life future. I think Key West will come to regret the decision to forgo the detailed, comprehensive research on which to craft its future. And, just to make it clear: My company did paid media consulting work for the support the study PAC.
But… Key West voters said no.
Hard feelings on both sides are apparent 10 days after the vote. But, unless the no voters can stop chortling “nah-nah-nah-nah” and the yes voters can stop eying them as careless, clueless pitchfork people, Key West is in for a long, slow economic decline.
by Linda Grist Cunningham | Aug 21, 2013 |
Way up on the mainland, folks in search of a little something to say talk about the weather. “How ’bout that (rain), (wind), (snow)” is appropriate. In Key West where no one much checks the forecast until seven minutes before a hurricane, weather is not a conversational option.
That doesn’t meant Key West has nothing to share over coffee. On the short list: chickens, homeless people, fat tourist families, corrupt (fill in the blank), once-a-week garbage collections, cruise ships, bicycles, scooters, lack of assisted living facilities, mandatory recycling, traffic on North Roosevelt Boulevard during the three-year, four-lane reconstruction, and the never-enlightening delineations among Conch, Bubba, Local, Snowbird and who-cares.
That’s enough. I did say short list. Oh, one more.
This summer’s snarler is the Oct. 1 study-on-channel-widening referendum. The Key West City Commission punted the binding referendum to city voters last October. The language boils down to this: Do you want the city to ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do a study on the effects of widening a one-mile stretch of the main ship channel.
I know about this one first hand because my company in April took on a piece of the communications plans for the political action committee that supports the study. Seemed pretty simple to me: It’s a study. Not a decision. Figure out the latest on environment, economy and quality of life so the city can make smart decisions over the next two decades.
Widening the channel might be a very bad idea. Or a good one. Or a “who knows” one. That’s the problem. We don’t know. And, for the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone could be against finding out.
They are. Those opposed to any changes in the channel and the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary in which it lies have positioned the ballot question as “do you want to widen the channel.” Not, do you want to gather enough facts and figures to decide whether widening the channel is a good idea.
If the opposition were based mostly in environmental concerns, I could understand. But environmental preservation barely masks an arrogant sneering over tourists who arrive on cruise ships. For too many opponents, tourists without private planes ought not spend much time in Key West. I overheard an opponent say in June: “I’d happily pay seven percent more in taxes just to get rid of the cruise ships.”
No many of us have the spare cash.
Cruise ship tourists and crew pump almost $90 million a year into Key West’s local businesses. An additional $5 million goes into government coffers, including schools. The state gets that much, too. There aren’t enough eco-tours, boutique sail boats and wealthy second-homers in the world to plug the hole Key West would find if cruise ships disappeared.
The economy, the environment and our quality of life are not mutually exclusive. Just saying no precludes informed decisions and limits possibilities. The sooner we figure that out, the sooner we can get the study done and get back to groaning over the North Roosevelt traffic.
by Linda Grist Cunningham | Feb 8, 2013 |
Key West’s love-hate affair with its tourists
A goodly portion of Key West’s 2.6 million tourists stops to primp in my office window on Whitehead Street. They don’t realize the mirror effect for them means they’re just inches from my to-them-invisible desk.
I learn about their families, listen to their enthusiastic reviews of architecture, the bars and the Hemingway House. I watch as they dig out a map or smartphone to figure out where they are, and I help with directions to the beach and how to use the parking meters.
Gaad, I love those tourists.
Key West has a love-hate affair with the tourists whose pocketbooks and credit cards pay the bills for the 25,000 or so permanent residents. Without the millions of dollars that flow annually into city coffers from cruise ships, day trippers and overnight visitors, Key West would be back to ramshackle houses and an exclusive enclave or two of mansions.
And, there’s the rub.
For lack of anything better, I’ll call them the “oh-so-awares.” Made up of long timers and newcomers, they’re a motley assortment of political, environmental and monied folks who’d prefer Key West were a destination exclusively for those with the wherewithal to afford second homes, high-end finishes and $50,000-per-canvas painting,
Heaven forbid our visitors only fork over for a T-shirt, a burger in paradise and a tour around the island on the Conch Train.
“Cruise ship passenger” is fighting words in this town. The oh-so-awares consider the 800,000 cruise ship visitors little more than uncultured, cheap rubes.
I wonder occasionally why the oh-so-awares don’t drown when they walk in the rain.
I’ll concede tourists — even those with gold card pedigrees — place an appalling demand on the island’s environment and infrastructure. I’ll concede automobile traffic and greenhouse gasses are out of control.
And, I’ll throw my support behind climate action plans, sustainability, clean-up efforts and plans to find a balance between tourism’s strain on the island and the island’s economic survival.
But, I won’t cease my love affair with those tourists who stop to primp in my office window. I used to be one of them.
