CKNews 2021
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NEW CKPOTTERY 2019

CEDAR KEY COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
DECIDES UPON PARKING, BUDGET
2024 November 21

The Cedar Key Community Redevelopment Agency met in a workshop first and then a meeting, two separate proceedings, on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at 5 pm in City Hall. This article recounts the meeting’s content.
 
Commissioners in attendance included: Chair Jim Wortham, Vice-Chair Sue Colson, Nancy Sera, Jeff Webb, and Jolie Davis. CRA member John Meeks was not in attendance.
 
BUDGET
FINAL BUDGET HEARING 2025
Commissioners unanimously approved the CRA 2025 budget. $634,325 carries over to the upcoming year’s budget.
 
RESOLUTION 2024-2
Commissioners unanimously approved the CRA budget for fiscal year 2024-2025.
 
THIRD STREET PROPERTY
Commissioners voted three to two, to not approve the purchase of property on the south side of Third Street from the Carmen Project.
No backup paperwork was provided for this item in the agenda packet.
 
For the past year, the CRA and the Carmen Project have been in negotiations about this property. It contains six lots on the south side of 3rd Street, behind the Island Hotel. The asking price was initially $525,000. The property was later appraised at $415,000. Tonight’s’ price, after Attorney Fugate and the Carmen Project representative met, was $415,000.
 
Mayor Sue Colson again articulated the community’s need for the property, citing hopes to raise a sinking Third Street,, its current value as parking, and the need for the city to own property for later catastrophes, public works staging, and other yet unknown complexities.
Commissioners Jim Wortham, Jeff Webb, and Jolie Davis voted not to purchase the property while Sue Colson and Nancy Sera voted to purchase it.
 
Wortham, Webb, and Davis said that they might purchase the land later if and when they were more certain of funding. Caryn Stephenson, Carmen Project co-owner, responded that, though she believed the land should be in the city’s hands, her project would move forward, and it may not be available to them in the future.
 
SECOND AND A-STREET PARKING
For the second time, the issue of possible parking spaces and retaining wall on the northwest corner of the Second Street and A-Streets intersection surfaced. Currently, the narrow road, A-Street, has no authorized parking, nor has it a pedestrian path/sidewalk.
 
Tonight, commissioners voted to provide a retaining wall and four parking spaces on A-Street at the intersection of Second and A-Street, site of the Sellars Bakery property, at a cost of $41,000. The vote was 5-0.
 
No informational backup paperwork was provided for this item in the agenda packet. The site plan showing the proposed parking and retaining wall was not available prior to the meeting to allow for public comment.
 
IN ATTENDANCE
Staff in attendance included: City of Cedar Key Attorney Norm Fugate and Interim City Clerk/Building Clerk Jennifer Sylvester.
Among those in the audience were: Ronnie Taylor, Dennis Gill, Dell Weible, Pat Bonish, Caryn Stephenson, Maureen Magee, ,Doug and Sandy Lindhout, Andrea and Scott Dennison, and the Cedar Key News’ Mandy and Frank Offerle.
 
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CEDAR KEY
COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
WORKSHOP MEETING
2024 November 21
 

The Cedar Key Community Redevelopment Agency met in a workshop first and then a meeting, two separate proceedings, on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at 5 pm in City Hall. This article reflects the workshop contents.
All commissioners were in attendance: Chair Jim Wortham, Vice-Chair Sue Colson, Nancy Sera, Jeff Webb, and Jolie Davis. CRA Member John Meeks was not in attendance.
 
WORKSHOP PREFACE
Chair Wortham announced the workshop’s intention: to hear from business owners how, after Hurricane Helene, the Community Redevelopment Agency, could help them. He expressed his concern that should businesses not succeed, Cedar Key may go the way of Suwannee or Yankeetown.
 
INVITED PANEL
Specifically invited to this “panel” were business individuals, for whom ten seats were reserved immediately before the commission dais. Of the city business community, five Cedar Key businesses representatives, Ronnie Taylor, Dell Weible, Denis Gull, Pat Bonish, and Caryn Stephenson, attended.
 
Wortham abbreviated the CRA’s history, some of its accomplishments, budgeting logic , some specifics it could legally and not legally do, and tax increment funding expectations to come.
 
RESPONSES
Responses from the invited panel were varied and often contradictory. To cite a few: easing land code regulations regarding building height as well as building on ground level, fully dredging the marina as well as filling in part of the marina to make a parking lot, installing moorings in the channel for large boats, placing marine gas facilities dockside or have a gas truck available to supply gas to boat people touring the coast, and gas available at the airport, adding more parking, adding more floating docks and, returning the post office truck to its previously rented property, businesses in residential areas, replaing some of the County housing with city buildings and businesses, fixing the pier, paying businesses’ permitting fees, and more.

Many of the ideas had been discussed at previous city workshops and shown to be unworkable and environmentally unsafe.
Many comments were regarding parking. Some saw it as a problem of people having to walk two or more blocks to a particular business.

Repeatedly, Wortham, Webb, and Davis implied that Community Redevelopment Agency dollars, for the businesses, were there for the asking, should the asking be within the legal limits of the agency. You need to “guide us, not vice versa,” articulated Wortham. Webb suggested the CRA give matching grants, not to be repaid, to help businesses rebuild.
 
 
IN ATTENDANCE
Staff in attendance included: City of Cedar Key Attorney Norm Fugate and Interim City Clerk/Building Clerk Jennifer Sylvester.
Among those in the audience were: Ronnie Taylor, Dennis Gill, Dell Weible, Pat Bonish, Caryn Stephenson, Maureen Magee, ,Doug and Sandy Lindhout, Andrea and Scott Dennison, and the Cedar Key News’ Mandy and Frank Offerle.
 
The workshop adjourned at 6:40 pm.
  
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new logo W3C WILL MEET DECEMBER 18 
2024  November  21
 
The Waccasassa Water and Wastewater Cooperative, the W3C, will meet on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, in Cedar Ky at City Hall
 
 
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   fwc-banner

 FWC RED TIDE REPORT  NOVEMBER  20, 2024

   VIEW MAP OF FLORIDA COUNTIES BY CLICKING ON "READ MORE" BELOW.  

 Current Conditions

Over the past week, the red tide organism Karenia brevis was detected in 125 samples collected from Northwest and Southwest Florida. Bloom concentrations (>100,000 cells/liter) were observed in 24 samples: one offshore of Pasco County, four offshore of Pinellas County, one from Hillsborough County, five from and offshore of Manatee County, 10 from Sarasota County, two from and offshore of Charlotte County, and one from Lee County. Light microscopy and/or automated shipboard analysis of samples collected between 11/9 to 11/16 confirmed the presence of K. brevis from and/or offshore of Pasco to Monroe counties. Chlorophyll satellite imagery (USF, NOAA) continues to be dynamic, with imagery from 11/19 showing patches of elevated chlorophyll along and/or offshore of Pinellas, Charlotte, and Lee counties.

Additional details are provided below.

In Southwest Florida over the past week, K. brevis was observed at background to medium concentrations in and offshore of Pinellas County, low to medium concentrations in and offshore of Hillsborough County, background to medium concentrations in and offshore of Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, and Lee counties, and background to very low concentrations offshore of Collier County.

In  Northwest Florida over the past week, K. brevis was observed at medium concentrations in one sample collected offshore of Pasco County.

Along the Florida East Coast over the past week, K. brevis was not observed.



CKWSD FAUCETCEDAR KEY WATER AND SEWER DISTRICT BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
NOTICE OF MEETING
2024 November 19



The Cedar Key Water and Sewer District (the "District") Board of Commissioners (the “Board”) announces a public meeting to be held at the following date/time:

Monday, December 2, 2024 at 4:00PM EST

The meeting will be held at 809 6th STREET, CEDAR KEY FL 32625, for the purpose of hosting an informational townhall for the Lift Station Rehabilitation Project and conduct other District business. All interested persons are invited to attend and participate in the meeting.

LIFT STATIONS /
GRINDER/PUMPING UNITS...
A PRIMER / THE BASICS
2024 November 18
 
 
PRIVATE STATIONS / UNITS
If you live on the islands south of the Number Four Bridge in Cedar Key and your property sits below the Cedar Key Water and Sewer District’s drainage system, you have a private residential lift station on your property.
 
The purpose of that lift station on your property is to “lift” and pump the sewage from your property up to the level of the CKWSD drainage system, where it is collected into one of seventeen CKW&SD lift stations around the Cedar Key islands south of the Number Four Bridge. Those seventeen lift stations lift and pump the sewage to the wastewater plant on Third Street where it is treated.
 
The lift stations on private properties are sometimes referred to as grinder pumping units, or wet wells.
 
The Cedar Key Water and Sewer District maintains the larger lift station systems that are located on the city right of way. The lift stations units on individuals’ private properties and all piping located beyond the water meter are the responsibility of the property owners. Both the CKWSD’s and individual property owners’ stations are electronically complex units requiring regular maintenance.
 
PUBLIC STATIONS / UNITS
The seventeen CKWSD lift stations will now be refurbished, thanks to grants from the Florida legislature and the energetic lobbying of CKWSD general manager and commissioners, some city officials, ad voluminous missives from Cedar Key based non-profit environmental groups.
 
PUBLIC MEETING
An information meeting presented by the CKWSD will be held on December 3rd. Presenters will explain the process and scheduling of the refurbishing of the seventeen water department lift stations The plan is that two stations will be refurbished at a time, diminishing he slight traffic alterations that will attend the process.
 
FURTHER HELPFUL INFORMATION
Helpful to you might be the two following pieces:
• the first from retired architect and resident Laura Goodwin focusing upon the lift stations on private property;
• the second from CKWSD General Manager John Rittenhouse focusing on lift stations on private properties when power interrupts operation.
 
 
 
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CLAM SCULPTURES: 
CELEBRATION AND UNVEILING
 
Saturday, November 30th, 2-6 pm
Cedar Key Sculpture Garden, 457 2nd Street
 
Join us for a fun, educational, and public art event in which clam sculptures painted by local artists will be unveiled.
 
The project is a collaborative effort with the Levy County Visitors Bureau, UF/IFAS Shellfish Extension Program, and Cedar Key Arts Center. 
 
NOV 18 STURMER CLAM PIECE********

 LCSO

  ARREST REPORT
2024  November 18
 
DISCLAIMER
The information provided below comes from the Levy County Sheriff’s Office Jail Media Report.
The photographs and commentaries regarding the allegations against the persons identified herein
are copied from the report verbatim, without any editorial comment or revision by this newspaper.
 
 
 
   
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CK CITY DECALSTORM DEBRIS REMOVAL ENDED
2024 Novvember 19
 
Pick up for storm debris has ended.
Expect removal as quickly as possible.
 
No new construction waste should be placed in debris piles.  New coonstruction waste removal is the responsibility of the builder/property owner.
 
 
 
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FOOD PANTRY LOGOLIONS DONATELIONS
SUPPLIES, FREEZER TO  FOOD PANTRY
2024 November 14
 
 
 
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CEDAR KEY WOMAN'S CLUB
FALL MARKET
2024 November 14 
 
COME JOINS US FOR OUR
CEDAR KEY WOMAN'S CLUB
ANNUAL FALL MARKET,
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30TH,
9AM-1PM. AT THE CLUBHOUSE.
 
Come check out our CKWC Granny's Attic, CKWC Jewelry Boutique, CKWC Granny's Pantry Bake Sale, Quilt Raffle, Flea Market Booths, and Snack Bar. If you need to reserve a Flea Market Booth, call 352-949-3070.

Due to Hurricane Helene, production of the CKWC annual calendar was put on hold due to recovery efforts for our community and club members. We hope next year to continue our annual tradition. Thank you to all those that sent photos.
 
IMG 4464 1
 
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CHIEF THEATER
 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL LIVE AT CHIEF THEATER
2024 November 13

Join the Chief Theatre for the classic holiday story A Christmas Carol live on stage. Infused with a myriad of popular Christmas carols and a subtle twist of humor, Charles Dickens' tale is once again alive with holiday spirit.
 
The cast features Maddy Baker, Brandt Beach, Celeste Beach, Blake Bianco, Chrissie Biggs, Morgan Biggs, Graham Burr, William Burr, Amelia DeShazer, Kristin Eckelmann, Val Fletcher, Sage Gregory, Jadyn Mathis, Mac McKenzie and Tiffany Wood.
The play is adapted by Jacquline Goldfinger and presented by special arrangement with Playscripts. This production is directed by Elizabeth Burr.

CITY OF CEDAR KEY
LAND/LOCAL PLANNING AGENCY MET 7 NOVEMBER
NOVEMBER 7
 
 
The Cedar Key Land/Local Planning Agency met on Thursday, November 7, 2024, In City Hall at 5pm.
 
LAND/LOCAL PLANNING AGENCY
In the Laws of Cedar Key, the Land/Local Planning Agency is referenced under both titles.
 
Over the years, the city’s Land/Local Planning Agency has changed. At given points, the five member panel was filled by the five commissioners on the Cedar Key Commission at the time. At other times, commissioners sought help from community members with expertise in architecture, construction, and other trades applicable to land planning. Currently, the Cedar Key Commissioners are acting as Cedar Key Land/Local Planning Agency members.
 
The Land Planning Agency has no power to dictate anything. Its purpose is to study issues and forward its advice to the Cedar Key Commission.
 
TONIGHT’S TASK
Mayor Sue Colson characterized the evening’s task as “planting seeds,” seeds that may germinate or may not, but some of which might serve as a future picture of Cedar Key. She explained that no decisions would be made this evening.
 
RESILIENT CEDAR KEY VIDEO
Narrated by Nature Coast Biological Station Director Mike Alen, the audience was reintroduced to the video Resilient Cedar Key.https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6e0018f57f2c4faf98cd603436f8255c
 
 
Available for the past several years, the City of Cedar Key and University of Florida produced video which is a must see for all area residents. The comprehensive, interactive piece demonstrates what happens to each and every piece of land in Cedar Key in flooding events.
 
ADVISORY BOARD
Colson suggested that the commissioners may need advisors, as they do not have individual land planning expertise, nor do they know what Cedar Key citizens want the area to be post hurricane.

The commission decided that each commissioner would speak to a different group to hear local concerns and wishes. Colson would speak to aquaculture representatives, Wortham environmental representatives, Sera history representatives, Webb commercial representatives, and Davis the residents.

On the advice of City of Cedar Key Attorney Norm Fugate and to bypass Sunshine Law concerns, the gathering of these groups will not be formal, noticed, or reported on directly. How the public is to hear of such meetings, be or be part of such remains a mystery.
 
AUDIENCE INPUT
Only four audience members had input.
Maureen Magee suggested that commissioners articulate a vision and focus upon what kind of visitor the city wishes to attract.
 
Susan Rosenthal expressed her concern about excess traffic in the areas where she resides, including the school and the Whiddon and Gulf intersection.

Jeri Treat reminded commissioners that individuals may belong to more than one of the groups with which each commissioner will meet. Many individuals represent more than one of those groups. How these individuals will interact with various groups was not addressed.
 
Scott Dennison suggested that the public properties around City Hall be reinvestigated for use.

The meeting adjourned at 6:10 pm

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CEDAR KEY SHOOL 
ANNUAL PIE AUCTION
2024 nOVEMBER 4
 
 
 
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