Vignettes II

New mayor, new house prices.

I've never been one to think that the President has that much direct influence over the economy of the country, even though the White House incumbent loves to take credit for a strong economy (and dump on Congress in the event its not). The City of Key West is suffering not a little from anti-tax legislators in Tallahassee who are determined to undermine the fabric of the state by cutting already low taxes even further. The other thing that has changed noticeably is the decline of house prices, thus further reducing the city's income. Both Mayor Macpherson and Challenger Weekly are in a run off for the second round of voting, with Weekly expected to win. What that means for the city isn't the least bit clear as neither candidate has confronted this new state of affairs head on.

What is clear is that plans to create "affordable" housing have come too little too late, as usual. Its now possible to buy a market rate apartment for around a quarter million dollars, roughly equivalent to deed restricted homes planned, but not available for the near future. The housing bubble has burst, formerly high prices have pushed many people out of the keys, and when help was needed none was forthcoming. These days homeowners with large home equity loans are forced to sell for what they can get to satisfy compliant banks who will take what they can get on their crap loans.
Now the city faces a tight budgetary future and we seem likely to find ourselves being led by a man who couldn't govern the city successfully when the coffers were full. Oh dear.

Bye bye my Vespa?

My beautiful vintage red can be seen parked in various locations around town bearing the red F of a For Sale sign. I've had a few calls, people looking for a desperate seller, and that means I get to ride the red bomber a few more times when I take her home for a clean up and a battery charge. I try to hold on to the experience of riding the Vespa because I fear it will fade all too fast after she goes to a new home. It really is a big black couch compared even to the long flat seat on the Bonneville.

Sand to Sunset

What you see here is a barge waiting to offload its cargo on the ritzy development of Sunset Key. In a few weeks snowbirds will be returning to their multi-million dollar homes on the exclusive island just offshore of the city, and they will want to see nice clean sand all around. After all thats what one expects in the tropics, coconuts and sand... so the tug in the photo is hauling sand to Key West from the Bahamas where the resource is abundant. God alone knows how much they spend on this pointless operation, but in the rocky keys where sand doesn't come naturally,its worth remembering we are still part of the USA. And in the USA if there's something you want but don't have, just throw enough money at the "problem" and it will go away, as if by magic.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Legal Rider.I have been nagging Diggy for some time to get himself organized and finally he did it. It was a sneaky trick on my part, but I lured him out of Key West on a pretext (lunch) and he bit, so to speak. In addition to an al fresco fish sandwich Diggy got dragged by me to the DMV office where, before he knew it he was sitting down to take the motorcycle endorsement test. Not a minute too soon because in 2008 the State of Florida is finally implementing a 4 hour classroom requirement for new motorcyclists. It'll cost $200 but its worthwhile if it helps educate juvenile delinquents to stay intact on a motorcycle. "I was kind of worried about taking it," he confessed later to me. That was all part of my dastardly plan. Being a Conch, Diggy would rather lose a leg than lose face, and his biggest fear about taking the test was being seen to fail.

"Watch," he said, "I'm gonna go in, fail and there'll be someone I know watching me." As a prognosticator Diggy sucks, because he passed and there was no one there to see him do it. Except me, and I think I was only forgiven for ambushing him thanks to the excellent lunch that preceded the testing ambush. His biggest problem was hiding how pleased he was that he passed. He rode home like a man with nothing to hide.