Crane Point, Marathon Keeps The Shades Drawn

On October 19 of this year an advertisement appeared in the Florida Keys Keynoter titled “Notice for Early Public Review of a Proposal to Support Activity in the 100-year Floodplain and Wetland.” While ads of this sort generally garner little attention, it did catch the eyes of those concerned about the installation of a zip-line attraction in the Crane Point Nature Center.

The notice sought input on the proposed construction and gave as a contact Marathon Community Services Coordinator Debrah London, listing her email address and phone number. The notice also gave contact information for Loretta Geotis from Crane Point and Calvin Knowles, the consultant from Meridian/GSG, the company that Marathon hired to manage the grant application process.

When a representative of Keep Crane Point Natural, an ad hoc group that opposes the plan, called Ms. London for more details, she was unable to explain what the comments were supposed to address. She referred the caller to Kevin Sullivan in Marathon’s planning department. His comment was that he “was not privy to the ad.” Nor did he respond with any further information.

This lack of knowledge or stonewalling, whichever one prefers to call it, is part of a consistent pattern in the dealings that opponents of the zip-line attraction have had with both the city and Crane Point. Crane Point is a private non-profit and has the right to withhold information even though doing so is poor public relations for a group looking for members and donations. However, Crane Point has partnered with the city of Marathon to obtain a State of Florida Department of Economic Opportunity grant and that changes everything with regard to transparency.

In fact, Crane Point made a commitment to present updates on its financial status every other month to the Marathon city council. That promise was extracted in May by now mayor Dick Ramsay. Ramsay had asked Crane Point attorney John Wolfe about whether the council could have updates from Crane Point every other month.

Wolfe replied, “Yes.”

Since May Jeff Smith, chair of the Crane Point board, has come before the council exactly once, on September 10, when he spoke for 59 seconds and gave vague information about expenditures– how much and for what. Council members failed to ask any questions. The September report should have been followed by another on November 12. Smith was at that city council session but did not speak.

The Blue Paper contacted now Mayor Ramsay and he responded via email.

“I have sent an e-mail to the city manager directing him to set up a meeting with the Crane Point Hammock folks with the intention being that they will in fact report to the council and the public at least once a month,” he wrote. “As you know I have met with several individuals expressing my concern over this project. I have not changed my mind and continue to have grave concerns.”

Ramsay then promised to follow up and provide answers about Crane Point’s response.

And then on October 19, an article appeared in the Keynoter announcing that Crane Point had retained Chuck Olson to “head up an aggressive fund raising campaign.” The Blue Paper canvassed several current members of Crane Point including Connie Gilbert of Key West, a life member and self-described 20-year fan of Crane Point. She said she could not recall receiving an announcement of the hiring nor did any other person report hearing the news from Crane Point directly.

In fact, when the plan for a zip line was first hatched the organization’s members found out via newspaper articles. There had been no membership meeting about the concept, no press release sent to members first, and no other prior notice.

The Keynoter article says that the Crane Point board “didn’t anticipate “the project getting bogged down by a vocal group of opponents who are exhausting every opportunity to put a stop to the zip line.” The Blue Paper questioned those in this “group of opponents” and none indicated that reporter Ryan McCarthy had bothered to interview them. Clearly McCarthy accepted Crane Point’s assessment that these opponents had slowed the process, a claim that is certainly open to question.

Any non-profit, especially one with as long a history as Crane Point, knows that it must involve its members and communicate with them regularly so that when the time comes to raise money or undertake large projects those same members can be counted on to provide the needed support. Gilbert recalled that Crane Point used to send out a regular newsletter but no longer does so.

Anyone who has ever joined a large non-profit generally gets a steady stream of financial appeals, often in the guise of newsletters or emails.

It’s also odd that Olson would be hired to do capital fundraising since the whole point of the zip-line installation is create a sustainable revenue stream. Crane Point has dangled very optimistic projections for what the project will bring in including one estimate for over a million dollars in the first year alone.

The bottom line is that when public funds – taxpayer money — are being used, then all parties have an obligation to keep everything public and open. Crane Point and Marathon have done anything but.

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Full disclosure: Michael Welber’s wife is part of the ad hoc group that opposes the zip-line attraction at Crane Point Hammock.