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Is
Stock Island next to incorporate?
BY TRAVIS JAMES
TRITTEN
keysnews.com
STOCK ISLAND -- Should
Stock Island part ways with the county and become a city?
An incorporation
movement is forming on Key West's closest neighbor, and it has the
support of state Rep. Ken Sorensen.
Three advocates say
residents are getting the shaft from the county and claim many more
share that opinion.
Incorporation would
mean a separate city government that could determine how the island
grows and where taxpayer money is spent.
"We just feel as a
community we can represent ourselves much better than we are being
represented now," said Catherine Harding, a former Key West planner who
is consulting for the group. "It is an issue of wanting to control our
own destiny."
Right now the group is
testing the water, but Harding said the community is behind the idea.
"We know it is going
to be a really tough struggle out here to become our own city É we think
we can do it," said Joe O'Connell, owner of Safe Harbor Marina.
County Growth
Management in particular has been heavy-handed with Stock Island,
O'Connell said.
Code enforcement has
ratcheted up efforts and business signs that have been up for 25 years
are being tagged, he said.
The county now wants
residents to help hammer out an island master plan that will guide
growth for years to come but O'Connell said growth management officials
have their own plans for Stock Island.
The county says it has
no preconceived ideas for the future of the island, and has made public
input a major component of the master plan process.
Harding, O'Connell and
Andy Griffiths attended the county master plan meeting Thursday night at
the Florida Keys Community College.
On Wednesday, the
three met with Sorensen to discuss how to move forward with becoming a
city.
Sorensen said
incorporation would take more than a year if the movement is successful
locally.
"It would take an act
of [the Florida] Legislature, which would come through my office," he
said.
Sorensen chairs the
Local Government and Veteran's Affairs Committee that would play a key
part in approving the incorporation.
But local proponents
must meet a host of requirements before the question goes to the
Legislature, Sorensen said.
"I suggested to them
that they go out and survey residents," Sorensen said.
A charter must also be
drawn up and reviewed by the state, he said.
One of the most
important factors would be an economic viability study, which determines
if an area has the tax base to support a government, Sorensen said.
Most likely, the
incorporation would not be completed this legislative session.
Incorporation has
swept the Keys in recent years, carving out Marathon and Islamorada --
two major population centers -- from county tax rolls. Voters in Key
Largo and the Lower Keys, however, shot down incorporation movements.
"The common thing that
I hear from everyone Éthe battle cry is always 'control of our own
destiny,'" Sorensen said.
Though the county
would lose tax dollars, it would also end up spending less on
infrastructure such as road work, he said.
ttritten@keysnews.com
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