One week ago, in the Saturday, August 16 edition of the KeyNoter newspaper, an editorial by the newspaper's publisher, Wane Markham, castigated Last Stand wth these statements:
Here's perfect example why government's broken
Talk about good intentions gone awry.
At Wednesday's County Commission meeting, an item listed under bulk approvals is announced innocently enough as "Approval of Engagement Agreement with Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, P.A."
Turns out that's a Palm Beach County law firm retained to defend the county in an administrative challenge over runway work done at Key West International Airport.
This was part of the county's compliance with Federal Aviation Administration rules governing runway safety. Because the airport is in an environmentally sensitive area, it took quite a bit of time and permit review to construct runway safety areas, which are designed to stop a rolling plane in a safe manner over a short distance. When the South Florida Water Management District approved the county application for the permit to relocate and fill a pond west of the existing runway, in steps Last Stand to file an appeal.
Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart will be hired to represent the county in this process if the contract is approved Wednesday.
Looking at their hourly rates, it's quite an eye-opener. Top-paid litigator listed pulls in a hefty $425 an hour. That would be Brian M. Seymour. Several other attorneys with the firm are in the $350 to $300 an hour range. And then some associates charge "only" $275 an hour on down to $200 an hour.
Here's another little wrinkle to consider.
When Monroe County applied for federal grants to make necessary runway improvements, the feds coughed up $7.5 million. Of that, the FAA sort of set aside $100,000 "for the costs of litigation."
So clearly, a portion of your federal tax dollar goes to help fund such stupid things as this.
The runway work has already been done. The pond is gone and the county did the required mitigation. Airplanes need a safe landing zone.
So one needs to ask Last Stand and others -- what's to be gained by filing an administration appeal on the Water Management District's permit approval?
If this is one of those so-called "holding actions," it strikes me as too little, too late, too expensive for us beleaguered tax payers.
And just looking at the paperwork needed to itemize the lawyers' travel expenses and per diem for lodging and a raft of other billable items makes my head hurt.
When you ask why government takes too long to accomplish so little and at such a high cost, Wednesday's agenda item on Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart gives you just one small part of the answer.
Last Stand recognized errors in the claims made in the editorial, and has problems with the implications made there. We have issued the following statement in response (which ran in today's KeyNoter):
Last Stand issues challenge to preserve environment
EDITOR: Publisher Wayne Markham's Aug. 16 column about Last Stand challenging a recent South Florida Water Management District decision to issue a permit that would allow the county to fill a salt pond at Key West Internatioal Airport contained some very basic factual errors, including the bizarre statement that "the runway work has already been done. The pond is gone and the county did the required mitigation."
Obviously if this were true, the county would not now be applying for the permit, and Last Stand would not be opposing it. In actuality, the wetland filling and mitigation have not already been done, and the Duck Pond has not been destroyed, but continues to provide a rare natural habitat on Key West.
The Salt Ponds form Key West's largest remaining open space, and the Duck Pond is a part of the original natural salt pond, site of a salt-works industry in the early 1800s. With its limited tidal circulation and extreme seasonal variations, the Duck Pond provides a unique habitat for fish and wildlife.
It continues to function as a true salt pond while all the other ponds in the Salt Ponds area are now fully tidal. In the wet season, water levels are high and salinities low, supporting flocks of teal and other migratory waterfowl that gave the pond its name. In the dry season, when water levels are low and salinities are high, it provides valuable habitat for wading birds and shorebirds.
Preserving the Salt Ponds has been a goal of this community for more than 30 years.
In deciding to issue the permit, the South Florida Water Management District acknowledged room to improve the project and reduce wetland impacts. It encouraged the parties to continue working toward beneficial changes to the planned project. Last Stand was instrumental in an earlier decision to use an engineered material to greatly reduce the extent of damage to mangroves at the east end of the runway and believes that by shifting the runway to the east, this project can be modified to provide the desired safety areas on the west end while avoiding all impacts to the Duck Pond.
We are willing to resolve the challenge and urge the county to put the money it would spend on a private law firm and the attention it might put into defending a still-flawed project into modifying the project to one that we can all support.
Albert Sullivan,
President, Last Stand
