Give the City of Key West Mayor and Commissioners your personal 2¢ worth on City Manager McLaughlin's plan to hand over rare, valuable waterfront public property to greedy developer Robert Spottswood!
City of Key West Commission Meeting on Tuesday, August 16th at 17:00 -
The City website is now allowing comments to be made on the site now under "Agenda item #16" until Tuesday at 15:00!
See link. After signing up to the City website, look for Agenda Item #16 hit the "Comment" button, and hit "Oppose" and then write in your comment opposing the City of Key West giving Robert Spottswood our public beach.
The agenda item reads:
"16 22-3022 Authorizing and allowing SH5 LTD, owner of the Marriott Beachside Hotel to apply for an Easement Agreement for approximately 1,753 Square Feet, of accreted land adjacent to the hotel and to North Roosevelt Boulevard ("Dinghy Beach"); Authorizing the City Manager to execute necessary documents upon consent of the City Attorney."
We OPPOSE the City giving away our public beach!
Some talking points you can add:
1.) Florida case law Daytona v Tona-Rama applies. The City has in its possession affidavits of locals already who have certified that Dinghy Beach has been a public beach with open access from the street since at least 1983.
2.) SH5's (Robert Spottswood/Marriott) 2005 landscaping permit by the City shows the Marriott willingly providing free access -unobstructed for 15 years- over a small portion of SH5 property, as required by Florida state law, thus public access is established under Daytona v Tona-Rama and the public is further granted continued access to the water.
3.) Florida Statutes 161.55 and 161.053 require public waterfront/beach to have unobstructed access. The SH5/Marriott fence stands in violation of both these statutes.
4.) The Monroe County Property Appraisers Office shows the beach area has TWO UPLAND OWNERS, not one as Spottswood's attorneys claim and the Avirom "opinion" states.
5.) 2007 Hildebrandt survey drew a riprarian line clearly showing SH5 does not own the beach west of the riprarian line.
6.) SH5 has provided no riprarian line survey establishing ownership of the disputed beach.
7.) SH5 operates in bad faith by claiming ownership without an official riprarian line survey showing ownership of the entire property and claiming they are the only upland owner of the entire beachfront property.
8.) Robert Spottswood doesn't have a chance winning any lawsuit he currently is threatening the City with, because the only riprarian line survey applicable will not support his claims in court. The City Manager's argument that fighting Spottswood in court will be costly for the City is false - it is a misrepresentation of the facts.
The site also allows you the opportunity to sign up to speak via Zoom at the meeting, if you can't be there in person.
The above photo is a copy of the 2005 city Marriott landscaping permit - clearly showing Spottswood allowed access to the water through his property until he removed the angled fence and put up the new fence in 2020 = Daytona v Tona-Rama applies and the beach access remains public.