Letter to the Key West City Commission

(Since I am probably not going to be able to make it to tomorrow night's Key West City Commission meeting, I sent the following letter to the Citry Clerk to be read into the record during the discussion of "Resolution A", Mayor McPhearson's move to establish a role for the FKACC in defining the assisted living project.)

To the City Clerk: Pursuant to Agenda item "(a)" of the Key West City Commission meeting of Tuesday, Deember 4, 2007, please read the comments below into the record. Thank you.     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: David Lybrand, Key West, Florida To: The members of the Key West City Commission There is a major imbalance between affordable assisted care facilities verses expensive NON-assisted care retirement housing in the current FKACC plan. It is important that the resolution assigning them as overseers of the assisted living facility be amended before passage by the commission. The current FKACC proposal provides free land subsidies to the wealthy who wish to get into a nice NON-ASSISTED retirement home at the waterfront. In contrast, the plan is very light on providing actual affordable assisted care facilities. It includes 87 expensive retirement homes -- some costing over one million dollars -- for people who can still drive and work and live without assistance. But it only provides 20 affordable rooms for those actually needing assisted care. The other 20 assisted care rooms are planned to be MARKET RATE, which few average Key Westers would be able to afford. This imbalance must be corrected in the RFP process. I urge the commission to amend the resolution to add language directing the FKACC to correct their proposal to include MORE affordable assisted living facilities, and LESS expensive NON-assisted retirement homes. With over 5 free acres to work with, there's no excuse for only providing our average citizenry with 20 more affordable assisted rooms. Please make sure that the FKACC understands this. Thank you. David Lybrand Key West