Forget Plan Z. Key Biscayne has Plan K - Express lanes for the Rickenbacker

FORGET ABOUT PLAN Z -- the Village of Key Biscayne has its own plan for redeveloping the Rickenbacker Causeway. Developed by the administration of Manager Steve Williamson, it focuses on traffic and resilience, creating express lanes to avoid traffic jams on Virginia Key.

Out guest is the manager, Steve Williamson, and the village planning chief, Jeremy Gauger.

Take a look at the plan here

What's in the plan, and more importantly, can it work? 

Transcript

Copy

Tony Winton: 0:40

. This is antisocial, the podcast where we look at some of the silly stuff on social media and then just go home because it never seems to stop. I'm Tony Winton.

Thom Mozloom: 0:53

I'm Thom Mozloom I thought I was the silliest stuff on social media. Tony, everything else is just mean and discombobulated.

Tony Winton: 1:01

Well, it's especially mean this time of the year. It seems to always get meaner. When it's election year. I don't know. Why could you think of a reason?

Thom Mozloom: 1:10

Well, I don't know. Maybe because every ad you see on television is awful. And everybody is awful. Except your candidate.

Tony Winton: 1:17

Right? Exactly.

Thom Mozloom: 1:20

I'm running for Seat A. Everybody else who's running for Seat A eats children. They're all terrible. Yes, exactly. And communists don't forget. Yes.

Tony Winton: 1:30

And yes, exactly. That's but that's kind of like, but the communist thing is kind of like more of a South Florida thing. Right. You know, it's every part of the country is saying, you know, Candiate B is really bad. But here we got that extra little twist. And in Spanish, you know, use "agente de Castro," As a dad, is that is that old? I don't know that. It was like maybe 10 years ago? I don't know, 20 years ago, anyway? No, no, it's it's a it's a continual issue. But here today, we're talking. That'll be the second segment today. The first segment we're talking about is, well, it's dealing with this long, long going saga. That is just been, you know, I think it needs you know, we bring back our music. Our musical, you know, issue here, because it's a long story, the bridge over troubled waters. And of course, we're talking about the Rickenbacker. This is a saga that burst onto the scene in local governments always been an issue but burst onto the scene with the unsolicited secret proposal or is it the secret unsolicited proposal, I'm not sure. That was released by Mayor Levine Cava It was made by these Zyscovitch consortium. And she decided to move forward with it, she could have spiked it right there when it happened, but instead decided to move forward with it, it became an an RFP or request for proposal. And under this complicated, convoluted system that the county set up, competitors could compete with the unsolicited proposal, and then eventually the government would make a decision about which one would want to proceed if they wanted to. That's another way we're it got killed

Thom Mozloom: 3:16

gonna say, right, hang on a second. I think you're you said other companies could compete. Right, with the without actually knowing the cost proposal, or where the money would come from?

Tony Winton: 3:31

Well, there would be there eventually, there would be a set of specifications that they that they would meet the RFP and and people would come in, and then you know, at the end, yes, at some point the dollars would would become revealed. Right. But that would when towards the end of the process.

Thom Mozloom: 3:46

When does that happen? When do we get to see those numbers?

Tony Winton: 3:48

Well, never now because the there was a cone of silence. And we have that sound effect too, if you want to play at the cone of silence locked, locked all of that down. And and we actually made a public records request to try to see some of that information along with a number of news organizations, and we were unsuccessful.

Thom: 4:07

Would you believe? It's an unsealed proposal?

Tony Winton: 4:13

Yep. So anyway, so So bring that forward. So the village of Key Biscayne. This caused a great deal of concern that were well attended public meetings. People were holding up signs stop plan Z, the village council actually passed a resolution in opposition to the unsolicited proposal and asked that the RFP be terminated and eventually the county commission and that they actually decided to spike it and say, we're gonna go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan that involves stakeholders we had the mayor, Levine Cava came on our program. You know, said , said that repeatedly that she's not interested in a solution that is running roughshod over the stakeholders. She has made that very clear So this proposal was terminated. And of course Commissioner Raquel Regalado, a potential rival in a couple of years for that seat of Mayor, Also, this is her district district seven. So she's been very involved and tried to do that. So So where does it leave us? Well, Key Biscaybne said, it's not enough just to say no. Key Biscayne said we have to come up with a plan of our own. And so our guest today is the village manager of Key Biscayne, Mr. Steve Williamson. And he is going to ,with his staff, going to tell us a little bit about the very beginning. This is a concept it's a draft, it's not even close to being final yet. But they've been working now for several months with a with a team of professionals. And they've been coming up with well, if keep us gift plan z is bad. What would plan K for Key Biscayne look like? What would it look like? If it was look, from our perspective? What would be what residents want out of a plan for the causeway? What would what should be in there? What should not be in there? And that is what we're going to be talking about today. There have been a, there was a public presentation. There was a discussion on the other night at the village council about this and the shortened presentation. So now we've caught our audience up to speed. And I guess, Tom, before we ask our first question of our guests, you know, where do you think it? I mean, what's on your mind? What

Thom Mozloom: 6:25

I will tell you that I read most of this plan, I sort of sifted through a bunch of this. And in my brain. I haven't seen anything quite this complete, or thoroughly vetted and thought out like every It's like somebody gave them a checklist. And they said, Okay, we need biker separated from traffic check. We need a place just for bikers check. We need traffic check. We need traffic just to keep us in check. I mean, it is super, super thorough. And my first thought anytime I see something just perfect. In South Florida, I say there's no way in hell that's actually going to happen. First question is

Tony Winton: 7:09

Oh, Tom, you're so pessimistic. Yes.

Thom: 7:12

I'm sorry, but it's true. So what are the chances that this gets at least a fair shake and maybe move down the line as opposed to you know, they keep this game and they pat you on the head and send you back to your corner? And then they go build? You know, big tent? How's their circus?

Tony Winton: 7:33

Mr. Manager, Steve Williamson, the question to you

Steve Williamson: 7:36

All right, Thom. Nice setup. But hey, I alright, Tony. want to say I think things are back to normal school was back in people coming home from the summertime and the key is starting to get crowded again. So we're excited to be here. Tom, you pose an interesting question. So as you know, back in March, our council asked us to go out and develop a concept. And I'll reiterate the fact that this is this is truly a concept that would represent the village's interests and what we want to see going forward, which is why you see that we checked the blog, we wanted to make sure that we indeed, covered everything that our residents were concerned about. At the same time, we wanted to make sure that we set conditions so that we could begin to collaborate with others. And so that's where we are right now. We've got that concept. We've been collaborating with others, and we're ready to move forward.

Tony Winton: 8:24

Well, let me follow up, though, because at the council meeting, and I know you've you and I've spoken, you have had a lot of this interactions with stakeholders. The word that caught my attention was this idea of a master plan, right, a joint master plan. What is that? Exactly? And what what is that the document that's going to eventually contain all the checkmarks? Right?

Steve Williamson: 8:48

No, I appreciate that, Tony. And I know and my mistake, I've got sitting here to my right, my building zoning and planning director, Jeremy kaios. Gallagher, and I'll actually let him address that question on how we are working with the Department of Transportation and Public Works. Okay, and what are the next steps going forward to in fact, go with them and develop a Joint Master Plan? Okay, great.

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 9:09

All right. Hello. Thanks for having us. So let me just talk more broadly, what is a master plan when it's sort of official because I think everybody sort of thinks of these things as dusty documents that sit on shelves, possibly. But when a master plan you, you generate a concept you it's nowhere near sort of construction documents, but it does set out an overall framework that then you can, when you come back with a construction project, it's built to the standards that have already been agreed upon in the master plan. So the strength of something like that is, is that if we can get it adopted across multiple jurisdictions, which is definitely an issue on the Rickenbacker Causeway, where you jump from city to county to village jurisdictions, then you can get a dog cement that starts to guide the subsequent construction projects. And also that that means you don't have to do everything at once you and it can be broken up, and it can be done piecemeal, but done piecemeal, all towards this ultimate goal and ultimate thing, because what we've seen happen out there, and and if you go out to Virginia Key, particularly, there are six bike lanes total, there are two on the north side of the road, there's the lanes in the road, and then there's a separate path on the south. So there's already like a massive amount of infrastructure out there. It's just being handled. And people have tried to Band Aid solutions, year after year after year after year. In fact, you can see construction projects after each subsequent cyclists death. Where they come out and they do some additional work. And for lack of a masterplan unifying all that work. We've gotten a lot of expense, a lot of work done, but sort of firing off in different directions. Right.

Tony Winton: 11:02

Tom's question No, and it was a question that council members Sega Sega Rolla raised at the meeting saying this is great. You heard him? Great, but you know, I don't think this has a chance of ever going forward. And, you know, to be candid, that, you know, a lot of great ideas in Miami have never been adopted. And it's not just nothing particularly about Key Biscayn That's it, they great ideas, you know, you know, what's the expression, this is where the great ideas go to die? I mean, the idea is, how do you? How do you get past that cynicism? A and B, how do you get the buy in, that's going to be necessary for what is going to be a massive investment that achieves all these things?

Steve Williamson: 11:46

That's a great question, Tony. And I think, look, I mean, one of the things that we wanted to make sure that we did from the start, is talk to every single one of the stakeholders, I think that's never been done before. And Jeremy and his team went out there and really did talk to folks. One of the other benefits that Jeremy has, he rides his bike every single day. So not only is he someone who's planning this thing he drives he understands every single inch of this. We've held community meetings, we've gotten the support from Commissioner Regalado, we've gotten support from the city of Miami. And then as you mentioned before, we've been directed by the county mayor to go in to work with public works on a master plan. So we are where we are now, where do we go next, we're going to continue to pursue, we're going to continue to be perseverant. We know this is important to our residents. We know this is our front driveway, as we say. So this is something that we will continue to persevere.

Thom Mozloom: 12:40

But how will you get this plan that you guys have drawn up in front of Miami Dade County? How are you going to get them to take serious consideration about it, have some meetings and ask questions.

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 12:55

So we're actually already meeting with them pretty regularly about how to move forward with this? and have it become a sort of official in house process. That's a master plan within their agency right within the Public Works Agency, and move towards official adoption. And I'd say you know, the big picture, how do we keep this from just being a dream is you actually make it something that's pretty indispensable to all the stakeholders. So we know that that venue, and the venues on Virginia Key when the marine stadium is open, even without the marine stadium, but when they start doing more events in the parking lot of the marine Stadium, the traffic out there is dysfunctional for events look at Ultra. So well, let's let's not the trick there is you don't need to you don't need 80,000 people for it to go wrong. Like you could have, you could have three, four different venues, each having five to 6000 people, realistically on any given weekend on some weeknights. So if we can create a solution that actually solves their problem, and now they're interested in our project, our plan moving forward, and we can get the so that's the city on board, we can get the Seaquarium on board, their landlord is the county and we can get enough broad support. I think that's the way you make it work. And that's the way you sustain interest because the way these things die is people lose interest. But this is going to be an ongoing problem. So they'll have ongoing interest.

Tony Winton: 14:32

Well, you know, and then of course, there's an I didn't come up with this line, Aaron Sorkin came up with this line, but there's only two reasons the government never doesn't do something. It's because it's too expensive and it cost too much. So that's that's the issue would be how do you get past that hurdle?

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 14:49

So I will state upfront we deliberately have not proceeded to a cost estimate yet that isn't next step. But we needed to write down what we Wanted first and what we needed out of this. So you've got to start with that sort of list of requirements. And then we can move on to the next one, which is cost. But I will say the proposal that we have is definitely cost effective. You know, we're not proposing something that's an overall elevated too much infrastructure, we have two overpasses, and then we're tying into the existing bridge structures, and we're really on grade roadways the rest of the way. So we always have cost sort of front of mind without having done the actual estimate yet, but we are we are going to be working on that with our consultant. As soon as we got sort of the input from counsel, that's going to be a next step.

Thom Mozloom: 15:48

Yeah, I was wondering about, as I read it, I was thinking to myself, are we looking at a proposal that you guys feel is complete? And ready to add on to? Or do you feel? are you approaching it almost like it's a negotiating document? This is where the village of Key Biscayne is here, our demands? Now, let's start talking.

Steve Williamson: 16:11

Well, Tom, let me feel that initially, and then I'll transfer it back to Jeremy. I mean, initially, what we said, and obviously, it wasn't specific words we use back in March, but it's really put your money where your mouth is, right. So we spent a lot of time our village spent a lot of time believing that the process that the county was going with was not the right way. So we decided to put our money where our mouth is develop a concept that represents what we believe should be the causeway and what it would support the village as well as Crandon Park and Bill backs. So that was the first step. And I think we're there right now. And then I'm going to turn it over to Jeremy to say now, where are we going from that point? So yes, is it a little bit of a negotiating tool? Yes, it is. But I think I'm not we're now beyond that, because we've negotiated to the table, we're working with the County, the county is already searching for money to do the Joint Master Plan with us. So we're where we need to be. So the negotiation, at least the first step of negotiation is done.

Tony Winton: 17:10

And if I, if I can just, you also said something that the councilman I thought was pretty significant is that the county had agreed to extend and this is a very wonky technical thing, but it's significant, they had agreed to extend the P D and II study to a greater area than before. And that is a critical environmental study that's required by law. And basically, this is a precursor to doing anything, you have to have the big study. And now it's been extended, it's a bigger bigger than before, right?

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 17:42

It is, and the county was great working with us and just sort of recognizing that there might be some additional impact. And at this early stage, just a matter of, you know, it was really going to be confined to almost like just the portion over water. And so they already

Tony Winton: 17:59

speak at the Village Council. And that's what he said, it's really kind of very narrow.

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 18:02

Yeah. So by our work already, and so they just sort of saw, you know, okay, these guys are serious about this. All right, let's really think about this bigger picture. And so we can incorporate that. And then it coming back to the issue of is this a negotiation or is this a design? I'd say it's actually both you I think you if folks were listening to village council the other night they sort of said, you know, definitely we need a lane, additional lane outbound from the key. Absolutely, because this is just an ideal design that's refined with traffic counts, because we haven't done those yet either. So, you know, I think this becomes a little bit of both you know, I've been working on this for five months, so I think it's perfect so

Thom Mozloom: 18:57

thing though, is, is there are benefits of plan K that specifically benefit the village of Key Biscayne and its residents and nobody else and it strikes me that the village would have a far better chance of having some of those things included in whatever the master plan is if the village had skin in the game. Do you think the village is ready to put its money where their mouth is?

Steve Williamson: 19:30

I'm not so sure we're gonna call plan K town but your words

Thom Mozloom: 19:36

Tony, Tony said it first.

Steve Williamson: 19:37

Okay. You repeated it but already good luck. We've already put

Tony Winton: 19:40

money where the graphics already been done for this show. And it says plan case. Get decided, alright.

Steve Williamson: 19:47

But anyway, we've already put our money where our mouth is to start with, right we were serious. We weren't kidding around when we were going to produce a product that was going to show what we believe the key needs as population. But I will also tell you that both Jeremy and I who used to work at the City, Miami, worked on the Virginia Key master plan, so we know it very well. So we're not just looking at this from Virginia from excuse me from Key Biscayne, obviously, we will work here, I'm the manager, I'm going to make sure that all of our interests are taken care of. But we also recognize the value of Virginia Key not just currently, but also a future potential that we worked on that together for two years and city. And so a lot of what you see that Jeremy put together, number one, making sure that we did with supports the key but also taking consideration a lot of those access points, a lot of those intersections and the beauty that the Virginia Key convey.

Thom Mozloom: 20:38

But do you think that the village is ready to put millions of dollars into the into the pavement into the actual construction process and absorb some of the costs some of the exorbitant costs that we are going to be asking the county to absorb through this plan?

Steve Williamson: 20:54

I think if you ask that question right now, the answer is no, because we're not far enough along. But I think as we move forward, and we're persistent on this, and we get the county to where we want them to go, which is a joint master plan, that makes sense that supports all stakeholders. And you heard Jeremy mentioned before, we can begin to look at this piece by piece by piece and tackle this off as one project at a time. As far as a big project. You know, that would be the best case scenario. We'll see where that goes. But we want to make sure there is a coherent master plan for the entire Rickenbacker causeway that makes sense for everybody.

Tony Winton: 21:30

Let me if I can just ask a question about how we get to comparisons, right. The plan Z, the attraction of it, and what the mayor said, when she made this decision to take it off of secret, double probation status, whatever it is, and throw it into this RFP process is that it was it had a lot of things going for it. And of course, let's let's be frank, they had a he had a financing source, right, he had a private capital ready to go ahead and makes it so much easier for governments to make the do these big public works projects a lot faster than the traditional procurement method, there was a value for money study, which basically said the same thing. So all of that is all that is out there. And it's kind of a chicken in the egg problem. Because you know, you want to do certain things, your checklist. The plan needs to do this, but then you don't know what it costs. You have to spend money to find out what it cost and then you understand what the value of each part of the checklist is. Tom's question was elements that you know, benefit keep his game perhaps more than the general community. How do you kind of solve that chicken and the egg problem? Okay, we wanted I'm going to zero in on two things. You have these overpasses on Virginia Key that are basically solving the left turn problem, right, you're getting the traffic flowing, flowing properly, maybe queueing that involves mast Academy so that that's not in plan Z. Right? That's huge difference from plan z. So that's more expense. How do you figure out well, how do I how do I prevent the cost from ballooning? Is there any kind of guesstimate where you say this kind of a scenario where you're doing a great separation or this kind of stuff? You know, well, then typically, this is what this costs for two lanes and 14, how do you is there is there I'm trying to here's what I'm getting to? Is there like a Lego set where like, I know, this is a I take the Lego and I put it on the on the thing I said, Okay, that's a that's a that that that costs on 100 million dollars. And if I need to have limits $200 million? I mean, that's what I'm asking.

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 23:39

So let me I'm gonna have to get a little wonky with the response because it's about process. Right. So we took this to council, we took it to a public meeting last week, we live in Washington, yeah, so perfect. My feedback, there was, hey, we need a lane. So if we had done our cost estimate work, before that feedback, we'd have a useless piece of paper. So so we've got to get the broad parameters of the design down. And then we do the Lego set cost estimate. And we will it will be of a similar use and scale to that this is going to be a sort of cost per linear foot or even linear mile estimate that we get from our team that was in the original scope and scope of work for them. So it'll be very broad, but we will get to a cost estimate from them.

Tony Winton: 24:31

Right there is but to get my point, right, so your generic six lane interstate highway with a cloverleaf, okay, that's there 1000s of them around the country all over the place, right state roads, interstates, that that has a cost, you know, you have to know what you have to build and it does certain things and everything else. That's what I'm getting to is Is there some kind of basic framework you know, and say, okay, plan Z reportedly cost the estimate was five 100 million dollars. And then of course, that's if that's what it really costs where the tolls come from, where does the revenue come from? So that I guess, I guess, you can't necessarily just say I gotta get a cost first and not know what your funding is. I mean, they don't these things have to move kind of parallel to you don't get you don't come up with a plan that has no way and possibly even any chance of being funded?

Steve Williamson: 25:21

Well, I think you heard Jeremy say that, you know, we're, we're developing this concept with cost of money. You know, there have been some folks who wanted, as you mentioned, you know, a complete raised highway, you know, we know that's, you know, in itself is going to close, close to two and about $200 million. So we agreed to stay a great, you know, we want to make sure that we keep costs down. We're not ready yet to go into, you know, some of the governance, the funding the operation and maintenance processes, yet, I think those become much more complex, not only because that's not a capability to keep this game has, but we're talking again, three jurisdictions here. So this is going to be something that we have to work with the city of Miami, we have to work with the county, obviously, county has ultimate jurisdiction over this. But we need to put smart people in the room and begin to talk about what is this cost? What are the traffic capabilities you wanted to have? And then begin to look at options. So we're not there yet. I think we're going to be there relatively soon. But, you know, again, you know, we wish we were there. But you know, I wish I could give Canvas back in six months. And we'll tell you where we are then.

Thom Mozloom: 26:30

All right. All right, Jenna, gentlemen. Well, if if you're sticking around, it's time for us to take a brief break. Again, I can't when I read the plan, I thought it was really really well done really well thought out. We'll talk more about it after these messages.

Tony Winton: 27:17

Yes, the bear cut bridge, that's our Lyric in our song. And that's, that's actually going to be a very key part of this, right? Because that's the you talk to plan Z, they read the documentation, they're the money that's going to be set for replacing the bare cut bridge is kind of the financial Lynn linchpin. And certainly in their estimation of the money that you need to go ahead and do all these other things is what do you think and I know you want to get a little more, you don't want to get into money too much. But do you have that same general viewpoint? Or are you really looking at this from kinda like a difference? Starting from scratch kind of idea?

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 27:55

Look, there's no question. Bridges over water are expensive. That's that's the money. They're expensive to maintain. They're expensive to build. So our little overpasses over dirt. The fact that they're over dirt, keeps them relatively simple redoing asphalt at grade on roads, even if we have to raise it a little bit for resiliency, all relatively simple compared to bridges over water and the amount of permitting you have to do the additional steps. So that's no matter what that's going to be where the the linchpin is.

Thom Mozloom: 28:29

I don't even think that the money is the hard part of this proposal. Like, frankly, I think, I think that you're you have three different municipalities involved, and multiple agencies. And while the village of Key Biscayne and the county often see eye to eye, the city of Miami has proven itself to be inconsistent at best. We've seen what they think of Virginia Key based on their last proposal to build a homeless warehouse there. We've seen them put Ultra there. We've seen them really be short sighted in how they have used and manage that particular property and the causeway that leads to it. How are we going to get the most inconsistent group of leaders to fall in line?

Steve Williamson: 29:37

Well, look, I mean, again, Jeremy and I came from from the city Miami and although we we dealt with

Thom Mozloom: 29:45

no shade on you guys, there's a reason you left. I

Steve Williamson: 29:48

know, it was a great experience. We learned quite a bit and we learned a lot about Virginia Key, and it's a wonderful opportunity. It's a beautiful piece of land, and I wouldn't I wouldn't take it so for granted that The city doesn't care about it, they do. There are a number of folks who have a great vision for that, you know, redoing the marine stadium, creating a flex park in front of it, taking the landfill making into athletic fields. I think there is a vision. Is it taking them a long time to get there? Yes, it is. So how do we make sure that the city comes along with us in this, we make sure that what we design gives them the access that they need, it gives control of the transportation to get there, and all of a sudden it takes begins to take down the problems that they're facing now. So you know, this, this conversation is not over we we've had conversations with a couple of commissioners at City, Miami, the Mayor of the City of Miami, as well as the staff. So they're excited about this. Now, how do we integrate this into what their goals are? And we need to continue to work on that. But I mean, I guess

Tony Winton: 30:49

the question is the the track record is pretty, pretty poor in terms of binding agreements and people living up to their word. And I guess the question is, what you said earlier, is you're essentially dangling a carrot, you're you're solving their problems that they need solved to do things that the city needs to do on this island. And the question is, you know, does that carrot take the form of a municipal compact? I mean, I think, I think at this point, given the track record, how could you proceed without some kind of document like that?

Steve Williamson: 31:24

Well, I think that goes that goes to the governance structure, right. I mean, I think if there are three municipalities, and there are F dot, there's probably a fourth there's F dot, you know, there's always you keep hearing the word MDX come up, you know, I was gonna ask about him. So, you know, there's there's multiple, multiple options of who can be on a potential board or some sort of governing structure. I think we need that, because maybe even some of the private some of the private entities along the way might want to be on this board as well. I mean, like, Seaquarium. Yeah. I mean, whether they're voting members or whether they're, you know, supporting members, we can figure that as we go forward. But I mean, Jeremy said extremely well before, when we help solve other people's problems, we start bringing people on board.

Thom Mozloom: 32:09

So what do you guys see as the biggest problem to solve? Was it just giving the whole project some form of structure, like an outline to build around? Or is there something that we're missing?

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 32:25

I'm a planner. So I'm gonna say, you know, you need a good plan. But, you know, as far as real problems that we must solve, that are existential threats, we've got to, we've got to account for resiliency and sea level rise. And even if that if you do not touch that road, and you leave everything as is, there will still be major investment, just to bring it up a couple feet periodically, as the water table comes up. So that's the importance of a plan, right? So there's going to be continuous investment out there, whether it's maintenance, whether it's minor improvements to bring it in line, so it can just function at a basic level. So that's, that's the idea is if you have a plan, even if those improvements take some years, you're always sort of putting them in service of this bigger vision, this bigger idea and like, so it doesn't have to happen over overnight. It's not a one shot deal necessarily. It can be a series of incremental improvements.

Tony Winton: 33:26

Alright, we have I know we've kept you guys here a long time. I want to just ask one exit question is causally related but not specifically about all of this plan Z plan K whatever we want I'm calling the plan it has to do with the speed limits that which were altered as the result of this a very very tragic accident and we keep by the way having these collisions I think there was one just the other day it's it's an we're seeing continued enforcement issued by the county it's generated a lot of heat a lot of passion and keep his game that peloton, what can you sit talk about this idea that the speed limits are changing wizards, seven changes? Five changes in one direction and four, four or five and the other ones and it's not consistent? What is it about talking to the county and possibly bringing some at least some regularity to the speed limits?

Steve Williamson: 34:19

Oh, well, they are completely on board. And I think it was it was amazing. As we had this conversation with the county when Jeremy popped up this one slide. I think they saw a flash of like, holy cow, we didn't realize it changed five times. So I think they're on board of making consistent and make sense. It's the same type of road all the way from the beginning to the end, you know, we hit a couple of curves in Crandon Park I think we want to be really careful around and then obviously we want to make sure that we're slowing down entering into the village but we're all for consistent one and right now, the village keep us gains interest is bringing you back to 45 where it makes sense 45 mph

Tony Winton: 34:52

any any kind of outlook you can give us on when that might happen or wherever they want to change them in one direction per The darn fast that we're having

Steve Williamson: 35:01

conversations right now, we have we're working both with Miami Dade police department as well as with the Department of Transportation public works. And we got to make sure that it works for both of them.

Tony Winton: 35:12

All right, well, I'm gonna say then thank you to our guests for being here and filling us in on the latest of what is going to be with us, I guess, for a long time the the future of this project, even if even under best case scenario, right, we're looking at a decade, right before any kind of serious construction, where to start, just in terms of the permitting and the environmental and everything else that would be the optimistic timeframe. Right.

Jeremy Calleros Gauger: 35:39

Yeah, that sounds I think, I think five to six years, probably for bear cut bridge, potentially.

Thom Mozloom: 35:48

Alright, well, the work you guys have done is super impressive. And, you know, don't take my my pithy nature to take anything away from that hardware. I certainly recognize the thought that went into it. And I wish you guys a whole lot of luck in dealing with the other municipalities.

Tony Winton: 36:06

And for being our guests on antisocial, we'll be back right after this. And we are back live on antisocial talking about, well, a topic, that topic and so many other ones that of course we had some other big news happen this week. In the village of Key Biscayne, I wonder what that could be Tom.

Thom Mozloom: 36:59

There was an election or something right?

Tony Winton: 37:01

Yeah, some some

Unknown: 37:02

I heard. I heard it was too close to call. Except Except

Tony Winton: 37:07

well, yeah, no, there was there was a little bit we called it. of how should I say? Kind of confusion. At the very end of how that happened. The board of elections, the elections Department reported the previous vote, the early votes and the mail ballots, the very rapidly those came in, really within a few minutes after the polls closed. Then it was a long wait for the first batch of Election Day votes. And we had record turnout over 3000 people voting. But it was a very small number of votes. It was I think, 250 270 votes. And we know just from what we've seen in the turnout, and from reports of people who've visited the polls, I went there in the morning, pretty steady turnout all day long that that number could simply not be correct. And the elections department told us that. No, that's it the elections over in Key Biscayne, go home. And we just knew that there were over 1000 votes that hadn't been counted. So and we had a very tight with all those rates of votes outstanding. We just had no way of closing it. And then we check with the elections department. And sure enough, with a few minutes after that phone call, they did update the totals and the results are what they are.

Thom Mozloom: 38:25

Well, when you say we checked, Tony, you actually mean that you actually called them and spoke to a human being because you know, people over there, and you were able to straighten it all out. And then moments later live when you and I were on the air talking about they changed the results.

Tony Winton: 38:41

Well, listen, I'm not taking credit for that. And it's just a question of busy night, obviously, that they gear up for to have these primaries in general elections. And we just were able to get the information updated. I'm more interested in just, you know, again, we had this fantastic turnout we had, as I said, 38% of the 8000 or so registered voters in Key Biscayne, come out to vote in an August primary. More than you know, I guess double what the county turnout was really showing the level of interest in the mayoral race.

Thom Mozloom: 39:19

Yeah, rather incredible. The passion behind it. I like I said, I have my suspicions. Why? Simply because of the, you know, ridiculousness that went on in the run up and you know, passions run a high on Key Biscayne because, you know, your your party affiliation is non partisan, but about as party affiliated as I've ever seen.

Tony Winton: 39:40

Well, let's, let's actually let's do a little bit of on the cuff analysis, because I mean, I think we were having some audio problems the night when those results came in, and I'm not sure that that got out there. So let's, and we've had some both has, we've talked you and I about that and you've obviously very involved in a number of campaigns and I've covered a lot of them. You're looking at a three way race now. Former council member Katie Petros has been eliminated from the race. So we have Mr. Rasco. And Mr. Gomez, who are now the two candidates will be squaring off in November. And there's a pretty big spread in in the returns. Here you have Mr. Rascoe, with about 1400 votes. And Mr. Gomez with about 900 votes. So there's a margin there of about 500 votes and percentage wise 45% 29%. But the interesting thing is, you know, what is the you know, when you look at a result like that, the question that comes to mind is, what is the path for victory? If you're if you didn't finish first, right? Or, you know, what does that look like? And give it? I mean, given the turnout, I'm not sure that's how do you how do you frame that?

Thom Mozloom: 40:53

So I would look at what we see in front of us as a poll, right? It's, it's, our sample size is Key Biscayne voters, these are the people who voted in the primary. And if you don't look at the raw numbers, you look at the percentages, you see that Joe Rascoe, took about 45% of the total vote. Katie got 25.8% and foster got 29.3%, there were less than 99 votes, separating Katie from Foster. So the question is, if we look at those percentages, I also got 45% of the vote. Everybody else got 55% of the vote. Which means that if Faust though, has a chance of being mayor, just based on what we saw out of this poll, he has to get virtually all of Katie's voters. Anybody who was going to vote for Katie has to switch to vote for Fastow. If Bowser is going to have a chance at winning, so they're going to have to come up with a strategy very quickly, to attract KT voters. That's just I'm not playing politics. I'm not picking sides. I'm just giving you from a marketing and branding perspective. When we look at political polling, this is what we see. So if I'm advising the power stock camp, I'm telling them now, you have to go after those KTX voters.

Tony Winton: 42:29

And also at the same time, that would not be enough, you'd have to also prevent the people who didn't vote in the primary from voting in the same ratio, as they did before. Right. Yeah, we had a big turnout of 3000 3072 votes. Let's say that we have the same level of interest for the general election on I'm going to make go on a limb here and I'm going to guess we'll be close to 80% turnout in Key Biscayne. 70, maybe 75 80% for the general election, there's a lot of heavy races. Senate governor, you know, so a congress, there's a lot of there'll be a lot of interest in that election. And just as historically, you see that in an election. So I don't think that in 80% turnout is at all unreasonable when we had a 38% turnout in the primary. And given that, so every that's that means they're 3000 votes. So let's say that if you get to an 80% turnout, you're looking at, say 6000 votes, we had 3000 people vote 3100 More or less. In the primary. Let's say we have 6000 people vote. So you have to you have 3000 new voters so to speak. You mister if you're Mr. Gomez, you can't afford to have that ratio break towards Mr. Rascoe in the way that it broke in the primary. No,

Thom Mozloom: 43:53

no. And unfortunately for you guys who live on Key Biscayne, there's two ways for a candidate to prevent an uptick in his opponents. Voters one, you, you convince them that you're the guy, and somehow they switch affiliation, which is very, very difficult, the more tried and true and easier path is to get them to stay home. And the way you get them to stay home is you launch an immensely negative campaign against your opponent you say things that are horrible and hope that his voters don't say well now I'm gonna vote for the other guy but they just stay home. Don't vote. It's a it's a keep the vote at home campaign for my opponent. And I think I think you're gonna see a lot more negative mailers coming your way. Because I don't think that candidate Gomez has a choice. I think he's going to have to go

Tony Winton: 44:54

well, that's interesting. Mr. Gomez has been self funding his campaign. And the mailers, and we haven't really touched on this subject lot, they're all coming from these political committees. And getting them, getting the getting the source of the funds for these political committees is very difficult with the disclosure laws that we have in Florida. There's a political committee supporting Mr. Rascoe, that that's comprised of local Key Biscayne residents, and they file reports, and they've been quite public about what they've spent and where it's coming from. But that's the exception to and I'm not saying picking sides in any way. That's just the way things are in Florida. political committees are the rules and regulations covering them are not that robust. And so there are political committees that are that are putting some mailers out in this race, where we have some donor information for some of them, but we don't have donor information or, or even expenditure information for a lot of them. Right. And is that improper? Not for me to make that decision? It would seem to be, but you know, I'll ask you, Tom, do people is it common practice for these committees to just well, you know, we're not we're going to operate, we're going to do what we have to do, and we won't file our reports in a timely manner. And we'll get fined. But that's just part of the cost of doing business.

Thom Mozloom: 46:24

Yes, that's, that is common practice. And so, yeah, you know, especially if the donor disclosure, or the disclosure of expenses, tips off plan, like, if you, if you're saying, here's our expenses, and those are expenses that have made, but the tactic hasn't yet been deployed, you're essentially allowing your opponent that peek into your marketing plan, and let them gear up for it. You know, for instance, we know, let's pretend I'm right. It's a rare occurrence that I'm correct on political strategy, and foul. So if he has a prayer has to go negative and has to go negative for well, the Rascoe camp, if I'm advising them, I'm saying well, do some opposition research on yourself, find out where all that is going to come from, and create messaging now. To go against it.

Tony Winton: 47:21

You're talking about inoculation? Yeah, yeah.

Thom Mozloom: 47:25

Let it out. Now, let's do this. But that again, if you're going to do it, guess what that shows up on your expense forms? And that tells the other camp? Hey, we're doing this. So it is, it is a little gamesmanship that goes on with the with the financial reporting. And, you know, we'll see it all washes out at the end of the day, taking the fine when your campaign has already lost the race and you have shut down means that your campaign actually doesn't have to pay any. Unfortunately, that's the way it goes. Because the candidate is insulated. It's not a personal expense to campaign. Oh,

Tony Winton: 48:05

and the and the the irregularities. And I'm not accusing anyone. That's not that is an agency makes those determinations. But I can tell you is, you know, what we are seeing for some of these political committees are when you go to the website, it says, well, they exist as a political committee, but it says waiver, you know, they just keep they just keep not filing report not filing report not filing port, there isn't one entry for some of the ones I've seen. So, you know, the government's going to find them, how much will that be, but it's not missed. It's not the candidate because it's a separate organization.

Thom Mozloom: 48:39

Yeah. And once the campaign is over, if your candidate lost your campaign is out of business, there's no one to pay the fine. So it doesn't really, you know, you get fined, you have to pay the fine, but only if you win. So you know, the other thing you have to remember, though, is the flip side of this may also be true, a lot of the a lot of the packs that you see are packs that are in existence in perpetuity. So it's not just for one campaign, it's for a bunch of different campaigns. And, you know, you call your buddy and you say, Hey, I know you have this x and I use it for X, Y or Z equals two or you can use it for XY and Z equals and then you're saying, well, who's sending out this, but who's behind it, and you owe this pack, and it was started by this person. And such as that doesn't always tell you actually where the money is, who the donors are and where the money is coming from, because it's just a financial reservoir for multiple campaigns to use. But

Tony Winton: 49:35

let me ask you switch tactics here a little bit and I've had people ask me this question and keep his gain people run. Negative campaigns are as old as the hills. I've read some, I've read have some academic research that suggests that they do not. They do not necessarily suppress voter turnout, consistently, I guess, semi in some cases they do. Yeah, and that dip Sending on the type of negative voters, they may say they don't like negative campaigns, but depending on the type of negative, that's not always true, you know, attacks personal or that are personal attacks about someone fall into one category of attacks that are more about issues or, or trust or things like that things that are that are less about their their you know, their lifestyle or whatever you want to call about it. Those people people are have different levels of tone. What I'm saying is different levels of tolerance for depending on an attack ad, depending on what it is you're attacking.

Thom Mozloom: 50:38

Yeah, we talked about this a little bit on election night, you and one of the things we knows know is that when a candidate goes negative, they have to do so far enough away from the election, that by the time election comes around, they get to turn positive and talk about themselves. When you go negative. Not only is it designed to take the sheen off your opponent, but it also hurts you as well. It sort of turns people off, it's a boomer you have to get all your Yeah, you have to get all your your negative out well ahead of time it's why PACs are so good. Because when they first started it was a way to keep your candidate clean. Oh, it's not me doing the attack it's somebody else. Well, now that voters savvy enough to know it's all the same thing. A lot of the reason behind the attack ads is to attempt to get the your opponent's voters to just stay home but a larger chunk of it is to gin up your base. So that when they're in discussion, they could they could read your mantra they become your apostles, you know, I'm voting for so and so because oh you can't vote for so and so you know that they're you know, whatever they filter

Tony Winton: 51:52

Alright, well, we'll we'll see how that that the reaction I get just talking to people in Key Biscayne everyone's turned off by them. It has Yeah, that well, but But again, I look at Key Biscayne not with the eyes of someone who's a townie I look at Key Biscayne is it's a municipality that's got a very high, highly educated public population, very engaged citizenry a little bit different little bit different from other communities, but not so different. That the rules of politics don't apply here. Right. So so so so the the, we will see whether this boomerang thing works, what adjustments are made to messaging? What kind of pivots here, we'll be watching that carefully to see how that goes on?

Thom Mozloom: 52:40

Well, I'm going to tell you, I'm gonna give you one more piece of predictive. Okay, advice. The Gomez voter, as I could tell, is a passionate and loyal voter, which means they are the most likely to have voted in the primaries. What that means, in practical terms is there may not be that many of them left. There may not he may not he may have overperformed, his vote in the primaries, when you get all of the voters, his 29% of the primary voter may go down. Because there's not many more voters left to convert between now and Election Day. So I think I think faletau has an uphill battle. And he's going to be wise to take all of his years of political strategy and lobbying and mechanisms and and put it to use for his campaign. I think he's got a very, very large uphill battle.

Tony Winton: 53:47

Right. And if he continues to sell fund is going to be writing himself a large check.

Unknown: 53:53

Yeah. And, and if he's continued, if he continues to be connected to negative campaigning, it's going to make it even harder for him.

Tony Winton: 54:03

Well, we have 10 and a half weeks to go 11 weeks to go. So we'll stay on top of that, before we exit this topic. Because we've been, we want to make sure we cover all the political bases. We had another big development in the political world and keep us gain today. And of course, that was the filing deadline for Village Council. And so the big news there we have five people running for Village Council. We talked about the mayor's race, but the mayor has one vote on the council. There are seven seats on the council and there are going to be three vacancies. So we had five people run for these three vacancies. And the headline I guess, is that in a bit of a surprise, to have the incumbents decided not to run for reelection. That would be a councilmember Luis Laredo, a former US ambassador and Ignacio Sega Rolla a one term now will be a one term count. He had served on the council before Mr. Little Raido Ignacio segurola Being a one term member of council reached out to both of them. Briefly, I did hear back from Mr. Laredo, Councilmember Laredo and he has agreed to come on our show next week. So we will get to talk to him about what was going into his thoughts. He told me briefly that one term is good enough. He said, village council is intended as community service, not a political career. We need to be vigilant to uphold that founding principle. But we're interested in him coming on and talking about his his time on the council and he's agreed to come on. I have reached out to Mr. The reached out to Mr. Sehgal roll I have not heard back from him. But it is kind of interesting that you've got two of these members of council deciding not to run again. And so we will have only Ed London coming back to try and keep his seat and for newcomers.

Thom Mozloom: 55:59

Yeah, it's interesting. It's it has the possibility of reshaping the politics on the council in a large way. And it's interesting to me, because the council members Sega Rolla and and oh my gosh, I just spaced he's gonna kill me now, Laredo.

Tony Winton: 56:20

You're in trouble.

Thom Mozloom: 56:21

Now. Now I'm gonna get a phone call. Yes, you will. I apologize. I was looking at something else. I apologize. They're pretty consistent votes of a more conservative nature. And so having those seats come up and possibly be taken by, you know, somebody who is who comes from a different political background will be interesting.

Tony Winton: 56:49

Right? Well, our our candidates are Nicolas Lopez Jenkins, Oscar Sardinias, who did run before so he's making another try at it, Fernando Vasquez, and Mr. London and of course, the person who filed it the very last with minutes to gom was Andy Herrera, came into the clerk's office, I was there on Thursday, the noon deadline and came in about with about 15 minutes to go had all of his papers and got processed just before the doors are officially closed. It's kind of like -- they treat it the same way like a polling station, like you would get in the polling station door. By poll closing time you get to vote. If you get into the clerk's office with your paperwork, you're good. He got in there with 15 minutes to spare.

Thom Mozloom: 57:39

That's great. And in case I haven't done this, and you guys, listen know that Andy came to our attention as the gentleman who brought the bullhorn out and use that as a campaign device. And then we spent the better part of a year and a half, using the bullhorn to have a little fun. Andy, I recently saw Andy actually see up saw Andy for the first time ever face to face at the debate that you and I, you and I moderated Tony. And Andy told me that that schtick actually hurt his feelings. So I'm apologizing to Andy. And I am going to retire the bullhorn as it pertains to nd and that thing, because you know, I want to have fun, and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. That's sort of the goal of what we do here. We want to keep everybody informed, give really good information, have a little fun while we do it, but there's no sense of hurting people's feelings. That's a bridge too far. So I apologize to Andy. I'm doing it now alive and on the air. And, you know, I'm not saying that the bullhorn won't come back for other reasons, because bull horns are inherently funny. But I'm not going to use it to refer to Andy anymore.

Tony Winton: 58:54

Well, and I have not seen him with a bullhorn. He has been out there campaigning for candidates. You know, holding signs for Mr. Gomez and Miss Petros actually two candidates, so when I was there, he's holding two candidates, signs. And now he'll be running for counsel himself. So he'll be holding his own sign, presumably. But I didn't see a bullhorn. So perhaps you've retired it and he's retired it and the bullhorn in general has been retired from keep his game, perhaps that's what's out.

Unknown: 59:25

There you go. Well, if that's happened, it's a good day on this game. Well,

Tony Winton: 59:31

we've covered we've covered we've covered quite a bit of ground here on and we've been actually, believe it or not, we've been on the air for an hour. So I think it's time to say goodbye for this episode. We have a lot more to cover next week. We'll confirm that but Mr. Council member of the radio has agreed to come on and I'd love love to. Perhaps we could consider this early exit interview. Would that be the right way to call it? I don't know. Yeah,

Unknown: 59:55

that'd be fantastic. Yeah.

Tony Winton: 59:56

And to hear where he thinks the village is headed. He's got one huge big vote. Ahead of him, obviously, as does Mr. Sega roll on, which is the budget, the budget is the be his last big vote. That happens before the new council comes in. But we'll have that and of course we've got so many other things to talk about, but that will wrap up this edition of antisocial.

Thom Mozloom: 1:00:20

Excellent. Well, Tony, I have one last thing before we go for that drink. All right. I'll do the happy hour without you.

Tony Winton: 1:00:29

Okay, Tom. Let's

Thom Mozloom: 1:00:31

play the out music.{MUSIC]