Despite protests from Stock Island residents and businesses, City officials say they're ready to again start towing junk cars out of the City and dumping them on Stock Island.
The project to rid the City of more than 300 derelict vehicles came to a screeching halt last month after officials learned that A1A Towing, the company that has the project contract with the City, was storing the vehicles at the old Alex's Junkyard site on Stock Island without any security. That's against the law.
"By law, we have to red tag vehicles seven days before we can tow them," said Assistant City Manager John Jones. "Then, in case the owners want their cars back, we have to store them for 40 days before auctioning them off or crushing them."
But Stock Island resident Orin Oppermann said that the cars were just being dumped on an open lot with no fence and no security.
"If the owner of one of those vehicles were to come out to get his car and found it vandalized, somebody would be liable," he said.
The problem, Jones said, was the red tape required for A1A to obtain permits from the County to build a fence. It seems that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had to sign off on any fencing to ensure that no Key Deer would be endangered. No matter that there are no Key Deer on Stock Island.
Jones admitted that the City should not have allowed vehicles to be towed to that site before there was a fence, "but we were under the gun from the City Commission to launch the cleanup effort."
Currently, while a fully-permitted fence is under construction, security is being provided by around-the-clock guards. Towing will resume when the fence is completed, Jones said.
He emphasized that, while A1A's property is zoned as a junkyard, it is not the intention of City officials that it be used that way.
"This is simply a transfer facility," he said. "Eventually, all the vehicles towed there will be hauled away."
But Robbie Reckwerdt, who owns Robbie's Marina, is frustrated.
"I spent seven years and a quarter million dollars in attorneys' fees to get that junkyard closed down and the easement leading to my marina cleaned up," he said. "Now it's starting all over again— and it's the City of Key West doing it."
Oppermann is also frustrated. He is one of the leaders of a Stock Island cleanup movement.
"How can we make any progress in cleaning up our island if the City is going to send their junk vehicles out here?" he asked.