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KCB News in March
KCB news this month includes rain(!), music in the park, city hall updates and financing, pickleball shade, the golf course, more ordinances, more fines and penalties, a seawall update, and more.
Lock Down: the Question of the Year
People Are Asking, Does the city commission (still) have a siege mentality?
What did the City Commission do
at the Regular Meeting on March 19?
"We are making pretty good headway. The head scratching is over and the elbows are in the air."
The city commission held a regular meeting at the new time of 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 19. Find what KCBers had to say.
City Hall report: The east and north wall spalling repairs on Marble Hall are finished but there may be more to do on the west side. About 60% of the spalling repairs on the causeway bridge are complete. Vice-Mayor Colonell reported that the city hall addition "is moving along gangbusters." All the pilings are in, inspected, and approved. The grade beams will take 10 days to form and pour and then mechanical, electrical, and piping will go underground, and then we're ready for a slab. So we are making pretty good headway.
They designated March, 2026 as National Athletic Training Month and discussed a Fishing & Boating Club Donation.
Several KCBers objected to Wi-Fi and cameras in the park, the agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, licensed state readers, and who owns the data from the readers. More correspondents requested consideration of signs as well as allowing Dick Harper to resume work on his residence. Speakers were concerned about the 40 page ICE agreement, asked why it had not been discussed at commission meetings, and expressed surprise that the there was not even a mention of the agreement.
Quotes about the KCBPD-ICE agreement:
"Why hasn't this agreement been discussed at the commission meetings? I'm very concerned that this is not been made public enough for people to know what's going on."
"I think it's a hot topic. We talk about flowers on the bridge. I would think that this is just as important as flowers on the bridge that we have a small police department."
The commission will add the ICE agreement to the agenda for the April meeting.
The Rec Committee recommended hiring South Coast Sports Construction for the basketball court with the recommendation that the city hold a pre-construction conference with the contractor. Someone damaged one of the bocce courts that required a couple of hours by two men to repair. There were also motor bike tracks on the golf course. And individuals are till riding their bikes on the tennis court. That underscored the need for a multi-activity area for riding bicycles, scooters, playing hopscotch, jump rope, and other recreational activities. The Rec Committee discussed adding an additional 2,100 square feet of paving for these other recreational activities.
Mayor Foster congratulated Marathon Fire/EMS and Sgt. Buxton for exceptional service during a family emergency.
The Police Department promoted Officer Buckwalter to the rank of Sergeant. The surplus police vehicle was sold at auction for $6,157.
City manager Bartus reported on the legislative session, amendments to the comprehensive plan, a hurricane exercise, where he has focused for grant funding and a potential grant for the boat ramp repairs, more on floodplain ordinance changes, and a proposal for testing water quality in the canals.
The building department reported six current and two pending new homes being built. The seawall survey reports will be prepared.
City clerk Roussin has prepared a 2026 Candidate Packet and F.A.Q. Two commission seats (Mayor Foster and Commissioner Diehl) will be on the ballot in November.
The commission approved the minutes and a warrant for $689,665
For the pickleball shade structure, the commission determined all three bidders were nonresponsive but waived the requirements. Bliss was the lowest bidder. Mayor Foster moved to award up to $255,000 and then decide with the bidder what the final structures would be. Unanimous approval.
The basketball half court project generated a long discussion of the added paving and the walkways. Unanimous approval.
The commission appointed Sally Cherry as 1st Alternate and waived residency requirement for Lisa Joseph as 2nd Alternate to the Rec Committee.
The commission postponed establishing a fact-finding committee for golf course management. They approved hiring Holland & Knight as bond counsel for $30,000 and approved requesting proposals for tax-exempt loan financing for city hall. They approved the emergency digester pump out and a proposal for wastewater plant upgrades.
The CPH proposals for slab engineering and the existing concrete slab and pin piles, the contractors change order request (#7), the revised windows and storefronts, and the new change order request (#9) for a contract extension were all moved to Friday.
The commission unanimously approved the final reading of ordinance 2026-508, Future Land Use Policy, and the first reading of ordinance 2026-510, Sewers And Sewage Disposal Rates And Charges, with no discussion.
The commission unanimously approved the final reading of ordinance 2026-509, Seawall Conditions, after a discussion of the timeline.
The commission unanimously approved resolution 2026-03, an Updated Schedule Of Violations And Penalties and resolution 2026-05, Capital Improvements with no discussion. They pulled resolution 2026-04 to adopt the County Watershed Management Plan.
The city attorneys had no report.
Commissioner Harding reported that "COVID is down. It's still there, but a very minor level within KCB. It looks like flu has left us [but] we still have some RSV. Some minor RSV." He reminded us that, despite the rain, we are still in drought conditions.
Commissioner Harding also reported that the commission bought two license plate readers from the contractor Monroe County uses to allow sharing data with the county. Data sharing must be requested and approved by KCB PD.
Monroe County's experience is that their database has been requested by MCSO detectives, state troopers, border patrol, and other agencies. "Each one of those people has a line that is approved by a supervisory level like the captain."
It is very active. The frequency of hits so high that they had to desensitize it to major crimes. "It's been helpful [for] wanted suspects, stolen vehicles, stolen properties." It's menu driven, so you can decide if you want to look at all serious crimes or if you want to go down to somebody with a suspended license.
And so what I'd recommend is we take a look at their policies and procedures. And then the one thing I would say is that when we went through all this and approved it, we as commissioners didn't see the contract
Commissioner DiFransico offered a "thought about the cameras. I presume our police department is going to put together a doctrine or set of procedures for how to use it. Perhaps that would come before the commission to at least take a look at. So the citizens can understand what can be done with the cameras and what we will be doing with the cameras so that so that we can answer some of the specific questions that have been asking some of the questions have been raised, like, can they track media that go out of the city? How many times things like that. Is that what our intention is to have it?"
Commissioner Diehl completed all the seawall inspections. 29 seawalls need maintenance. 35 need immediate attention. 13 docks need repairs, and there's 16 visible structural issues. He recommends an annual inspection schedule.
He reported that Baptist Health has offered to host a Fundraiser for exercise equipment for city hall, in October or November when Marble Hall is completely renovated. And he would like to expand the St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations.
Commissioner DiFransico reported that the Watershed Management Plan could help go from a CRS Level 6 to a CRS Level 4 to improve the discount. The city's consultant has come up with three substantial recommendations: elevate Sadowski Causeway, look at the elevation of all our critical facilities such as the wastewater treatment plant, and better water management in heavy rain such as a pump injection system.
As reported earlier, even the new city hall addition will be built with a floor level below the Base Flood Elevation for the currently proposed flood standards.
Mayor Foster reported on the 2,000 gallon sewage spill at the plant. "It's been a rough month and a half. The operator did not get the tank pumped for almost a month, they were basically recycling it and burping it." KCB was hauling the sludge three or four times per week and they stopped. Some bad risk decisions and poor management and poor decision making. "We've put a million dollars in it, we got some improvement" and he is hopeful of money from the state.
In Citizen Comments, Pickleball Club chair Diane Slusher thanked the commissioners for their broad array of knowledge. Fred Swanson still thinks that the community will have other questions about the cameras. He reported three instances that should not have happened. John Sigenthaler agreed about the beauty of the facilities and what appears to be cooperation from the people in the government but had questions about the ICE and immigration situation. Do we have an agreement or a contract now in force with ICE? And that does that give the city police, the authority to make arrests for immigration or detain immigration suspects?
Commissioner Harding acknowledged that we have a contract for collaboration between the two agencies and that every agency in Florida has that same agreement. City clerk Roussin can email the contract or print it for pick up at city hall. She has shared it many times in the last two weeks. It's available for anyone that would like to see it.
Sgt. Buxton reported that KCB PD is still doing the same daily duties that they have always done. They assist every agency. They have no assigned duties from ICE. There are no training expense. She deferred the question of any extra training for police officers.
Laurie Swanson asked what sort of bonus we get from ICE for signing the agreement.
City clerk Roussin noted that they pay a stipend to our officer that's not for publication. The names of officers are exempt from public record. What can be disclosed as the amount of funding received for equipment, stipends, and for a small amount of overtime. We received $107,515 to be used over a 3-year contract period. We have purchased a vehicle.
Laurie Swanson asked what sort of equipment? The commission "couldn't go into that now." Does the data ever leave Monroe County?
Commissioner Harding answered that. The agreement is to share with MCSO. They have approved a limited number of state troopers and a number of border control people and two ICE agents. Outside of Monroe County, the majority of requested come from Border Patrol. Basically, any police agencies can request. KCB owns the data plus Insight who has control over the data. They will support orders and court orders. It's a three year contract with a "minimal fee per year" around $1,500.
Laurie Swanson asked what happens if we back out of that contract. What's the penalty?
Commissioner Harding "didn't see a penalty clause for money... What's happened with some of the other cities throughout the country is ramifications from state officials. If we backed out."
Mayor Foster shut down the debate.
Laurie Swanson commented that she questions whether we have big crime in Key Colony Beach and whether we're willing to sacrifice our privacy to solve no crime. She noted that immigrant citizens are picked up using license plate readers so she's against having license plate readers here.
Mayor Foster said, "Okay. That sounds good, Laurie. We got your comments."
Laurie Swanson asked some of the commissioners to respond to her letter of over a month ago. Read her letter here. Mayor Foster responded that "Tom addressed most of it already today."
Those questions include how long the information is stored. What else the data is used for. What safeguards citizens have from stalking by law enforcement. Invasion of privacy for every driver entering KCB. And why has this issue not been addressed as a Town Hall?
"Not all of it" Swanson said.
The meeting was adjourned.
What did the City Commission do
at the Continuation Meeting on March 20?
The commission reopened the regular meeting at 100 a.m. on Friday, March 20. Find what KCBers had to say.
Last year's plan to restore city hall and Marble Hall included driving pin piles and adding a layer of concrete to stabilize and level the admin area floor. The new work was inspected and passed.
The discussion revealed that the contractor did not follow the plans. The new pin piles aren't deep enough, aren't filled with grout, don't have welded top plates (which may mean the pipe isn't welded either), and may not have reinforced pile caps. They think the rebar in the concrete floor was laid on the ground and poured over.
New agenda item 7J considered replacing that new administration area concrete slab and pin piles and the CPH proposals for slab reengineering. Mayor Foster had already approved the proposal. Drawings will be done in about a week. Vice mayor Colonell estimated the remove and replace cost to be about $250,000. He hopes to pour both slabs by the second week of April. They will preserve evidence for the attorneys. "It's going to be a longshot on recovery," Mayor Foster said.
New item 7K was a discussion of a change order and the revised expectations for windows and storefronts. This type of window is necessary in order to meet the energy code. After extensive discussion, the commission approved paying the pass through cost of the glass changes. They postponed the extension of time in change order 7 and change order 9 (new item 7L) until the next meeting.
In housekeeping, the staging on the city hall site will keep growing. Pedro Falcon will build a temporary handicap ramp on the 7th Street side to give safer access to the post office and Marble Hall.
Water Is Short
The Marathon Weekly reports that the lack of rainfall and increased water demand have led to a water shortage in the Biscayne Aquifer used by the Keys. The South Florida Water Management District has issued a water shortage warning for the Florida Keys and nearby neighboring counties. The ongoing severe or extreme drought conditions have led to low water levels in the underground aquifer in Miami Dade County.
New City Hall is Underway
Construction and renovations to Marble Hall are underway. Holes for the pilings have been drilled and filled with concrete and rebar. During this phase of the project, access to the post office, parking areas, and portions of the property will be affected. There will be signs, barriers, and fencing to guide us through the parking lots, to the post office, and to Marble Hall.
Farmers Market
The KCB Farmers Market continues at a new location in the 7th Street Park on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. through the season. The commission chose the new location to avoid the city hall construction.
Beauty in KCB
Beauts and friends are looking for help on Wednesdays at 9 - 11 a.m. Here's the work party schedule for upcoming weeks: https://keycolonybeach.net/2026/01/26/%f0%9f%8c%b4-2026-beautification-committee-work-party-schedule.
Meetings
All Commission, Board, and Committee meetings have moved to the afternoon starting at 3:30 p.m. The KCB post office hours are not changed. The post office is open 24/7. Counter service is available at 11 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2 - 4 p.m., Monday-Friday.
The city calendar shows that the Utility Board and P&Z meetings for this week have been canceled.
During the construction period, there may be noise, dust, and increased activity on the entire lot. There will be a "safe passage through the parking lot to Marble Hall and the post office."
100% City Hall Design Drawings
The city commission held a special meeting in August for a presentation by CPH Architect Brandan DeCaro. The commission discussed the construction cost, rammed through the 100% design drawings, and approved the final bid package and contract.
Here is an abridged architectural plan showing the elevations and floor presented by CPH plus the elevation and 3D image from the citizen proposal to create a legal two story entry and to resolve the ADA access: http://peopleareasking.org/resources/100_submittal_set_floorplans-08-14-2025.pdf
KCBers are still very concerned that we're buying a five-six million dollar shopping center facade as the showpiece for the city despite the obvious violations of KCB ordinances, the probable violations of Florida Building Code and Florida statutes, the likelihood of an ADA lawsuit, and the concerns that there has been no citizen architectural review.
It is noteworthy that the simplest solution (first recommended at the beginning of this project) is to build the entrance lobby on ground level and floodproof it.
That simple solution eliminates ADA issues, eliminates parking lot issues, reduces the overall height of the building, and reduces costs.
The commission ignored that answer.
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Here is an abridged architectural plan showing the elevations and floor presented by CPH plus the elevation and 3D image from the citizen proposal to create a legal two story entry and to resolve the ADA access: http://peopleareasking.org/resources/100_submittal_set_floorplans-08-14-2025.pdf
All the official "City Hall Renovation" documents released so far can be found here: https://keycolonybeach.net/about-our-city-2/city-hall-renovations
Click or tap here to email your questions and comments to the commissioners and city clerk to ask these and other questions about the plans.
Download a `PDF of the City Hall comparison drawings
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