I urge my fellow Key Biscayne residents to view the public comments of Mr. Carlos de la Cruz from the Dec, 16, public comments section of the Village Council meeting, His comments run from about 2 minutes and 48 seconds to 7 minutes and 20 seconds of the public comments portion of the Council Meeting.
It is worth viewing his remarks and understanding what he is conveying.
Before I get to why I submit this piece to the Islander News, when you view this piece of the Council meeting, look at the Council Chamber and you will view a virtually empty room, and yet Mr. De La Cruz is talking about the most important financial decision our community has ever undertaken, the Big Dig. When the wrong decisions are made in the future, we will have only ourselves to blame.
His comments refer to an alternative approach to the Big Dig, namely an effort to improve natural drainage from our island under situations of extremely heavy rainfall, rather than the Big Dig. He is urging the Council to allow the alternative approach engineering firm to be allowed to do their work unimpeded. We should all want to hear about what the alternative approach entails and costs. We have already spent millions of dollars, with almost nothing to show for it.
If I had been at the meeting and added anything to the conversation, I would have asked two questions.
1. Exactly how does under grounding the utilities alter any future repairs that will be required to the pumping system, if the Big Dig in the K8 area is actually completed and lies underneath the in ground utilities?
2. Secondly but most importantly, does anyone believe that Key Biscayne is going to be allowed to take control of millions of gallons of water that has flowed along our streets and percolated through our lawns, and dump this untreated water into Biscayne Bay? Of course not.
What will we have to do to treat this water and at what cost per million gallons to prepare for discharge into Biscayne Bay. These will be real costs and will involve Federal and State and local E.P.A. regulations, and governing bodies. What costs will we face to comply with these regulations? All we hear is crickets.
In closing, kudos to Mr. De la Cruz for his efforts and for the questions he asks.
Thanks.
Bill Stiles