After collecting the needed number of signatures from eligible Key Biscayne voters, Betty Sime Conroy said she feels confident a referendum will be placed on the Nov. 3 ballot.

The initiative gives Island residents a chance to opine on the Village’s spending practices on major renovation projects, such as the current stormwater discussions.

“We did extremely well and did it by a large margin,” said Sime Conroy, a former two-term Council member and part of a group of residents who worked on the Village’s incorporation 35 years ago. “We feel good that it will be put on the ballot.”

Sime Conroy was joined by fellow Key Biscayne Neighbors Association board members Servando Parapar and Dr. Josie Valdes-Hurtado last Thursday (two days before the deadline) at the Village Clerk Office, where they submitted the signatures to be turned into the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections. It will take about 20 days before that paperwork is validated.

Needing at least 839 signatures, or 11% of the Village’s 7,628 eligible voters, Sime Conroy said they collected “much more.”

“We had like about 43 days, so it was really, honestly, amazing to do this,” she said. “It shows, to me, how popular this issue is.”

The “issue” is that some say the Village has been overspending, especially when it comes to the stormwater rebuild to thwart flooding from high-impact storms and major rainfalls.

Earlier this spring, she told Islander News, that with $8 million having been spent on consultants and a Zone 1 project estimated “around $83 million, but that’s without a shovel in the ground, so that’s always more,” the concern is additional spending.

“The problem is, it’s really unknown. They are just estimating,” she said.

In the current context (ballot wording would be much shorter), the Key Biscayne Neighbors Association petition reads, in part:

This change shifts the ultimate decision-making power for major multi-million-dollar drainage and flood control investments directly to the residents, ensuring taxpayer oversight on the Village’s most expensive infrastructure commitments.

The amendment requires that any large-scale stormwater or flood prevention efforts must be approved by a majority of voters if the total cost is estimated to exceed $50 million over a three-year (budget cycle) period.

With the recent Council approval to choose an injection type of pumping system from GIT Consultants, LLC over a more comprehensive plan proposed by AECOM’s engineers, “We don’t know how much it’s going to cost (without the final plans),” Sime Conroy told Islander News on Friday.

Recalling the days she’d stand outside the Winn-Dixie store collecting signatures, Sime Conroy said, “It was really easy to get people to sign. A lot of education was already out there about the ‘Big Dig’ (a term coined to encompass both the stormwater piping and utility under-grounding). Most of them knew something about it, but some didn’t know anything about it, so it was a good way to educate them, and how the referendum makes really good sense.”

She said she has not faced any friction from either Village staff or the populace since announcing the referendum endeavor.

“This is not an anti-government move by any stretch,” Sime Conroy said. “But it is (for) a smart growth requirement and ensures that Key Biscayne has a plan which is environmentally sound and technically complete.”

In the 2020 election, Key Biscayne voters approved a referendum for the Village to use a $100 million GO (General Obligation) Bond, if needed (up to the debt cap), for planned resiliency projects. That item passed with a 56.54% approval.

Should the current amendment get placed on the Nov. 3 ballot, Sime Conroy’s work isn’t done.

“We would have to promote it before the election,” she said. “You know, they say a referendum can be divisive, that it divides the community, but actually it’s a useful tool so that taxpayers are represented.

“We feel really good about it … and doing it in such a short time. It’s like a miracle, a grass-roots thing that’s worked (so far).”