MORE TOP STORIES OVER THE YEARS

 

NOTE: Dennis Reeves Cooper, Phd. founded Key West The Newspaper (the “Blue Paper”) in 1994 and was editor and publisher until his retirement last November. Apparently, he is up for at least one more adventure, so he has now applied to serve in the Peace Corps. While that application is pending, he is contributing a weekly column to the Blue Paper on line.

WHAT’S A BUQUEBUS?

I had the opportunity to go down to the city-owned ferry terminal at the foot of Caroline Street a few days ago to meet with Sue Srch, the executive director of the Citizen Review Board (CRB). That’s where the CRB office is located. I had not been in the terminal for several years– and it reminded me of a little scandal story we had covered back in 1996. The city commission passed a resolution “strongly supporting the efforts of Buquebus Inc to establish Naples-to-Key West ferry service.” At the Blue Paper, we thought that resolution was a little strange. Yes, such a service would potentially bring dollars to Key West. And the company was even promising to build a ferry terminal here. But all kinds of companies are always promising to bring business to Key West– and they don’t get special resolutions from the city commission supporting their efforts. After asking around, here is what we learned:

• Buquebus was an Argentinean company.
• Five American vessels were already providing ferry service between Florida’s west coast and Key West.
• There is a federal law– the Jones Act– that prohibits foreign vessels from operating port-to-port in the United States. Obviously, foreign vessels can bring passengers and cargo from foreign ports directly to US ports, but they are prohibited from transporting passengers and cargo from one US port directly to another US port. The purpose of the law is to protect US maritime interests.
• In order to be able to legally offer Naples to Key West service, Buquebus would need a waiver from Congress. The purpose of the city commission’s strange resolution was to give Buquebus a support document to help company officials’ lobbying efforts to try to get the waiver they needed from Congress. Had Buquebus cut some kind of a deal with one or more of the city commissioners to make the resolution happen?

Later, most of the commissioners claimed that they had not known about the real purpose of the resolution when they were asked to vote for it. They said that they would have never voted in favor of the resolution had they known that the purpose was to help Buquebus get a waiver that could potentially hurt US seamen and US maritime companies.

Once the Blue Paper reported the scam, it went downhill for Buquebus. Bob Tracey, chairman of the Key West Bight Management Board, said, “I can assure you that we will strongly oppose any request for a congressional waiver that will have an unfavorable impact on American boats and American workers. And I am puzzled as to why  the city commission would favor the interests of a foreign company over the interests of American companies. Indeed. An interesting question being asked around town at that time was, “How much does a resolution supporting a business that wants to come to town cost and who do you pay?”

Subsequently, the waiver never happened. Buquebus just sort of faded away, leaving the ferry terminal unfinished and leaving the City to pick up the tab to complete it.

A primary reason that the congressional waiver never happened was the work of a young attorney from Lakeland, Ed Scales, who represented one of the US companies currently operating ferry service from Ft. Myers to Key West. He made sure that those in Congress who were being lobbied to push through the waiver knew what the city commission resolution was really about– which pretty much killed the waiver request. Soon after that, Scales moved to Key West and several years later, was elected to serve on the city commission.

CITY MANAGER FIRED JUST A FEW MONTHS BEFORE RETIREMENT

On February 2, 1996, we published a pre-retirement interview with longtime City Manager Felix Cooper. During that interview, Cooper opined that “no locals were qualified to be city manager.” What he meant, of course, that in his opinion, no locals who had applied for the job were qualified. No matter what he meant, that comment outraged a number of the city commissioners and Cooper was fired within hours!

The local that Cooper was referring to was Paul Cates, who was then assistant city manager. It was no secret that the “Bubbas” on the city commission wanted to elevate Cates to the city manager seat as part of a movement to take city government back from the “outsiders”– non-native Key Westers. In November 1995, we had reported that Cates had hosted a breakfast at El Soboney Restaurant a couple of years earlier to plan the coup, which included:

• Forcing out the previous assistant city manager, Ron Herron, and replacing him with Cates. That had happened.
• Replacing City Attorney Ginny Stone with Joe Allen III. That had almost happened.
• Forcing the retirement of Police Chief Ray Peterson and replacing him with Capt. David Lariz. Peterson would be forced to retire, but he was replaced with outsider Buz Dillon.
• Promoting Richard Wardlow, the brother of then-Mayor Dennis Wardlow, to fire chief. That would happen.

In the interview we published on February 2, 1996, Cooper explained that although Cates had the necessary technical skills, he had never managed a city– and therefore, he could not recommend his elevation to city manager. Cooper pointed out that, because of the attractiveness of the job of city manager for Key West, the city could attract candidates who already had city management experience. No matter/ Within hours– literally–Felix Cooper was out and Paul Cates was in as acting city manager. Then the jockeying began to appoint a new city manager for real. By late March, the short list had been culled down to three– Cates, Clearwater Deputy City Manager Kathy Rice and local boy Julio Avael, who was then county administrator for Douglas County, Nevada. Longtime city-watchers were predicting that Cates would win. But he was no shoo-in. He did have his enemies on the city commission.

As the vote neared, rumor had it a 4-3 vote was locked up for Rice– Commissioners Sally Lewis, Merili McCoy, Carmen Turner (who had been appointed to fill former Commissioner Emery Major’s chair after Major pled guilty to bribery charges), and Jimmy Weekly. The three votes for Cates were presumed to be Mayor Wardlow and Commissioners Harry Bethel and Percy Curry. But McCoy had no intention of voting for either Rice or Cates. She wanted a Conch in the job– but she didn’t want Cates. So, suddenly, Avael went from a minor candidate to a major candidate. And when Rice was nominated, she only got three votes. Then, McCoy nominated Avael. And the backroom deal was this: If Wardlow, Bethel and Curry refused to throw their votes to Avael, McCoy would vote for Rice. The three Cates supporters went along with the deal, rationalizing that, at least, Avael was a Conch.

FIRING THE POLICE CHIEF

Once Avael was on the job, he started getting significant pressure from some of the commissioners who had delivered the job to him to fire Police Chief Ray Peterson. Mayor Wardlow especially wanted Peterson fired. . He blamed Peterson for calling in the FBI to investigate corruption in city government. That investigation had resulted in Wardlow being indicted on bribery charges. Wardlow was subsequently acquitted (although he was fined and reprimanded by the State Ethics Commission on the same charges); and now it was payback time. In Key West, the police chief reports to the city manager. But Avael couldn’t just suddenly fire him without cause. Peterson was a popular chief– some say he was the best chief of police the city ever had. So Avael had to be creative.  He literally trumped up dozens of charges against Peterson, compiling them in the now-infamous Blue Book. But Peterson wouldn’t quit. Hundreds of citizens attended rallies to protest efforts to fire Peterson. On the other side, a group of backstabbing cops rallied to support Avael.

In the end, Peterson was forced out– but his attorney was able to negotiate a lucrative retirement package. What about the charges against him? Part of the retirement agreement included a written admission from the city attorney that all of those charges were unfounded. Go figure.