Candidates for Key West commission seats show their colors

Candidates for Key West commission seats show their colors

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Perhaps overshadowed by the energetic Key West mayoral race this summer, there are still lively campaigns fighting for two open city commission seats.

There are two candidates for each of the two open seats; one in District 4 that is being vacated by Commissioner Richard Payne, and the other in District 5, where incumbent Commissioner Margaret Romero is giving up the seat to run for mayor. All four candidates faced off recently in a question & answer forum sponsored by Hometown!, the local non-partisan resource for candidate and election information.

First up was District 4, where attorney Greg Davila and local bar owner Jennifer Stefanacci were quizzed by four panelists that included Bill Becker, U.S.1 news director, Key West Citizen Editor Kay Harris, Historic Architectural Review Commission Chair Bryan Green, and community member John Dolan-Heitlinger.

After short introductory remarks – Stefanacci, managing partner for a bar on lower Duval Street, called herself “a well-educated bartender” – Green opened the forum with a tough question: would either candidate agreed to higher building heights and increased density in their district to accommodate badly-needed affordable housing?

“No,” Davila said bluntly with no elaboration, drawing applause from the audience. Stefanacci was a little more circumspect, saying it would depend on where a proposed development would be located.

“We have to look at all aspects,” she said, also drawing audience applause.

Both candidates agreed that local businesses should be required to recycle. But they diverged on other issues, including whether residents or the local business community should be city officials’ first priority. Davila’s campaign has pushed the idea that residents need to come first because the growing tourism industry has negatively impacted their quality of life with overcrowding, traffic congestion and sky-high real estate costs. Asked what the top three things were that they wanted to accomplish if elected, Davila went first, singling out more greenspace for recreation and local youth sports teams, an improvement in resident quality of life including not raising taxes, and adding more inexpensive public transportation for seniors. He also said more affordable housing could be created if illegal transient rental enforcement was stepped up and the U.S. Navy reopened Sigsbee Island for military housing.

“We’re not going to be able to build ourselves out of this problem,” he said.

Stefanacci was more pro-business in her priorities. When asked what her three top goals would be, she gave two, cleaning up the city and cleaning up Duval Street.

“That would be it,” she said. “Duval Street is a mess right now… it’s dirty. These cosmetic shops are poaching our tourists. It’s a misrepresentation of us as a community and as a tourism industry… In the end, we all want the same thing; clean, safe, beautiful Key West for tourists and locals.”

Next up were the two candidates for the District 5 seat, Mary Lou Hoover and Wally Moore. Asked the same question of what their top three priorities would be if elected, Hoover said combating sea level rise by protecting public infrastructure and slowing traffic on some neighborhood streets, including Paterson Road, where she lives. But affordable housing was her number one priority, she said.

“If elected, I would sink my teeth into that one and come up with a group of people from the community that included business and community leaders, elected officials, people that were actually going to live in the housing and I would put together a comprehensive plan,” she said.

Moore also said affordable housing was on top of his list, recommending the city create more incentives for private developers to build affordable projects by easing building code requirements for water cisterns and reducing the amount of money they have to set aside for Art in Public Places. Moore’s other two top priorities were to require fully-staffed public safety departments including ambulance services and easing traffic congestion while increasing the availability of parking. Moore was on the volunteer Parking and Alternative Transportation Group, which recently issued 23 recommendations to city officials to combat traffic challenges.

“Let’s make this a more friendly place to get around in,” he said. “Parking and congestion is key.”

Moore and Hoover were asked the same question as the candidates for District 4 about allowing higher buildings and increased density in their district if it helped create more affordable housing. Both said they would consider it.

“I believe there are some places in District 5 where we could do that, possibly in one of the [shopping] plazas,” Hoover said. “Some of the strip malls that are going in, putting housing above those, I would be in favor of doing that. Not in the neighborhoods, though.”

“I totally agree with Mary Lou on this one,” said Moore. “It depends on where it is located. But the district is kind of oblong and lengthy. I do believe there are places we could do it. We need to start thinking outside of the box.”

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