ROOSEVELT BOULEVARD: BLUNTLY PUT…
REMINDER: IMPORTANT MEETINGS THIS MONDAY AND TUESDAY
COALITION OF NORTH ROOSEVELT AFFECTED BUSINESSES:
Monday, August 5th, 5:00 p.m. at VFW, 2200 N. Roosevelt Blvd.
PUBLIC HEARING WITH FDOT OFFICIALS:
Tuesday, August 6th, 5:00 p.m. Old City Hall on Greene Street
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This comment appeared in the 7/30 “Citizen’s Voice” [Key West Citizen]:
“Everybody’s complaining about the slow work and small work crews on North Roosevelt Boulevard. This is nothing. Wait until work begins on the other side, where most of the businesses are. We just have to renegotiate this silly contract. They don’t work weekends; no holidays; they knock off around 4 p.m., and of course, rainy season. Seriously, we have got to get serious.” [Tim’s emphasis.]
I would not characterize the contract as “silly”. I would call it absurd, ill-conceived, unconscionable. We have several inputs that the entire project could have been completed in 365 days, not the 820 days set by the FDOT. (Understand the responsibility for the length of the contarct lies with FDOT and not the contractor. The plans were made by FDOT even before the contract was let. Are you concerned by the obvious lack of work? Well, the contractor can work at a snail’s pace (as it obviously has been) given the time the FDOT allocated for completion.)
Why the 820 days rather than 365? Presumably, the longer time saved FDOT money. Bluntly put, to save FDOT money FDOT was willing to wreak havoc on the businesses (and citizens who are daily inconvenienced) of Key West for an extra fifteen months. The entire city should be up in arms over this!
What FDOT did here was an insult to our elected officials, to our Mayor and City Commission, an insult to the business owners on North Roosevelt and an insult to every citizen in Key West. They might as well have spit in our collective faces. FDOT assigned this contract no priority at all. For instance they deliberately refused to call for night work. Why? Again, to save FDOT money. It’s as simple as that. Obviously night work from day one would have cut months off the contract but the decision was made to let Key West suffer for an extra 465 days merely to save FDOT funds.
In my opinion we should demand strong action from our representatives in Tallahassee (Sen. Bullard and Rep.. Raschein) and from our City officials. And remember, I think the FDOT’s actions here constitute an insult to our elected officials as well as to us. Would this have happened if the contract involved the home town of Governor Scott? Or the home town of a top leader in the Legislature? What do you think?
Of course the City cannot renegotiate the contract. Only FDOT can do that. But it should. And Sen Bullard, Rep Raschein, Mayor Cates et al. should do whatever it takes to make this happen.
In my opinion we should demand that the project be completed no later than January 31, 2014, regardless of what it takes.
FDOT screwed us (please excuse the vulgarity). It saved itself money on the backs of the boulevard businesses, causing great anguish and pain and suffering to hundreds of business owners.
We should ask the FDOT the famous question from the Army-McCarthy hearings: Have you no shame for what you have done to us?
It will of course take FDOT putting more money into the project to complete by January 31st. Well, so be it. The FDOT needs to find that money somewhere. It’s time to pay the piper. That money should have been allocated in the first place to complete the project in 365 days. Remember, the project could have, and should have, been completed last April!
Dale Ranson, Rick Boettger and I had a meeting with senior members of the FDOT team a few weeks ago and they admitted to us that with sufficient resources the project could indeed be completed in six months! All that is lacking to complete by January 1st is the will of the FDOT.
It is not fair to hold the Secretary of Transportation responsioble for the fiasco created by his minions, however, it is, now, his responsibility to fix the mess his employees deliberately created. And it is the responsibility of the Governor to ensure that he does so. In my opinion heads should roll: the heads of people who were willing to save FDOT money by killing the Key West businesses and imposing distress on so many people.
Also, I would call upon Holly and Sen. Bullard to ensure that FDOT never again inflicts such disaster on any other community. FDOT should be required by law to conduct an economic impact study on any major construction project and to take the study results into consideration in planning the project. And the impact study should involve the elected officials and business leaders of the affected community. Others can learn from the mistakes that were made here. No other community should ever have to go through the anguish and pain and economic devestation that the FDOT deliberately imposed on Key West!
Is deliberately too strong a word here? Well, if the FDOT planners could not anticipate what havoc their ill-conceived plans would have on the businesses and citizens of Key West, that calls into question their intelligence. It is hard for me to believe that any FDOT official could be sufficiently obtuse not to recognize the consequences of their decisions. I think they knew what they were doing, that they delibetrately chose to create an 820 day contract rather than a 365 day contract to save FDOT funds. That is what it comes down to. Save FDOT money by creating a disaster in Key West. Would their decisions have been different if it was they (not us) who were suffering the losses? If their pay would be cut by 30% (about the average loss to the boulevard businesses) if they made a decision, do you think that decision would be made if the suffering was theirs?
I am (obviously) irate but I am irate not just because I am employed by one of the affected businesses and friends with the owner and his nice family but because I have heard first hand the pain and suffering the FDOT actions have caused so many other business owners, all nice people. Any citizen (even outside Key West) ought be as indignant as I am that state officials could be so heartless as to impose such a disaster on citizens of this state, the same citizens who pay their salary.
Tim Gratz
Tim Gratz is associated with the Coalition of North Roosevelt Affected Businesses (CNRAB) but the views he expesses here are not necessarily those of the Coalition.