No Easter Seals, now where will KOTS land?
KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER
Pressured by legal deadlines and the city attorney to make a decision on where to move the overnight homeless shelter, Key West city commissioners instead deadlocked at their Tuesday, Oct. 7, meeting, taking one option off the table but unable to make a final determination on a new site.
After a lengthy debate that included passionate pleas from several residents not to relocate the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter (KOTS) near their homes, commissioners couldn’t reach a consensus. The only vote taken was to move the shelter, which houses a maximum of 140 people a night, to the former Easter Seals building on College Road. But the 3-3 tie vote effectively killed that proposal, which was sponsored by Mayor Craig Cates and supported by commissioners Teri Johnston and Jimmy Weekley.
A second proposal sponsored by commissioners Tony Yaniz and Billy Wardlow to move KOTS to a city-owned site on Palm Avenue near the Meadows residential neighborhood and Peary Court – whose new owners intend turning that apartment complex into luxury homes – was withdrawn by Yaniz when it became clear it didn’t have enough votes to pass.
The tie-breaking vote would have gone to Commissioner Mark Rossi. However, he was attending a cruise industry conference in St. Maarten on Tuesday. When Yanitz suggested postponing any vote until Rossi returned, Johnston pointed out that Rossi did not request that his fellow commissioners wait until he could attend the next meeting. In the past, Johnston said, when an absent commissioner requested an issue be held until they were present to vote, their wish had been accommodated.
“Without that kind of input from Commissioners Rossi, I am assuming that he didn’t want to vote on it,” Johnston said.
“With all due respect, he doesn’t get to dodge the bullet,” Yaniz responded.
There was a clear unease from other commissioners to act on the proposals in front of them, as well. Commissioner Clayton Lopez said he would vote no to both the Easter Seals and Palm Avenue sites. Wardlow said he wanted specific cost estimates on building a new overnight shelter and the services it would offer before he could pick the most appropriate location.
“We’re behind the eight ball right now, way behind the eight ball,” he said.
Lopez pointed out that no matter where KOTS eventually ends up, “somebody is going to have a problem.” As a result, despite the fact commissioners have known for a year that they would have to relocate KOTS, Lopez said he wanted to go back to city hall planners “to edify myself more with the specifics we are faced with.” Like Wardlow, he said he wanted to finalize a plan on services and operations before choosing a site.
“I think we’re kind of spinning here,” Lopez said.
The only people happy with Tuesday’s outcome were residents of the Key West Golf Club Homeowners Association, whose board of directors had threatened to sue the city if commissioners voted to move KOTS to the former Easter Seals building. William Buzzi, a director of the association, said the Easter Seals site proposal would be “a poor decision.”
“You’d be hard pressed to find a more illogical or dangerous site to house people of unknown background,” he said.
“I find it interesting that we’re locating a shelter that probably has a lot of dangerous-type people,” said Robert Raffenelli, who owns a home in the golf association.
But Chris Stone, who has a background in social services, stood up for the homeless men and women who use KOTS, saying, contrary to opinions expressed Tuesday night, are not all “on the dole.”
“We must participate in this rather than just push them off someplace,” she said. “They are human beings. They are our brothers and sisters. We’re just darn lucky we aren’t one of them at this point.”
City Attorney Shawn Smith has been urging commissioners to take action on the relocation decision. He pointed out that the city has already missed one deadline under a legal settlement with owners of the Sunset Marina Homeowners Association, who successfully sued the city in 2011 over its decision to put KOTS in its current location on College Road next to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department building. The court agreed that the city had ignored its own permitting processes when it opened KOTS at that site.
Smith told the commission that the next deadline was to have a finalized shelter development plan in front of the city Planning Board by February 2015. He also said that any proposal could come before commissioners, including the Easter Seals building site, if they wanted to reconsider their tied vote.
“Sooner or later we have to vote on this,” Johnston said. “With all due respect, this is the same conversation we’ve had for two years.”
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