Betty Sime Conroy said Monday she’s confident that a referendum proposal requiring a public vote on any future Key Biscayne stormwater project exceeding $50 million would pass, if the petition gets the legal approval.

“I think we’ve had nothing but support from anyone I’ve discussed this with,” she told Islander News. “People fear our Council is over-spending and, with six multiple zones, we haven’t been given any clear overall costs.”

Sime Conroy, a former two-term Council member, leads a group called the Key Biscayne Neighbors Association, which is behind the referendum effort.

A total of 839 signatures will be needed (“We’d like to have much more,” she said), or 11% of the Village’s 7,628 eligible voters. A late July deadline looms in order for the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections to place that on this year’s election ballot.

Sime Conroy said with a Zone 1 project estimated “around $83 million, but that’s without a shovel in the ground,” the concern is additional spending.

An Ad Hoc Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 9, when GIT Consulting officials are to supply the estimate on how they would reduce flooding, while AECOM officials are poised to offer their analysis and maybe a more direct estimate.

“I’m glad we have the opportunity (to listen to both sides),” Sime Conroy said.

At the onset of the Village’s incorporation, “We started out being fiscally conservative. I know we weren’t faced with all these projects, like we are now, but we were very careful,” she said.

The proposed measure mandates that any stormwater expenditure exceeding $50 million within any three-year budget cycle shall not be effective until approved by a simple majority vote of the Village electors.

The Key Biscayne Neighbors Association will host an open public meeting at 6 p.m., on Monday, April 13, in the Community Room by the Turtle Pond in Village Hall, where they will try to explain the differences in the two types of engineering projects being considered.

“Our meeting is like a workshop, so everybody understands the value of both of them,” Sime Conroy said.

That will come a day before the April 14 Village Council meeting, when a final decision could be made for the Zone 1 project or the Garden District.