Report on Bicyclist Fatality Finally Released

FIVE-MONTH INVESTIGATION
CONCLUDES THAT 75-YEAR-OLD
MAN RAN A STOP SIGN ON HIS
BICYCLE AND WAS HIT BY
SPEEDING CAR ON FLAGLER.

DRIVER OF CAR WILL BE CITED
BUT STATE ATTORNEY SAYS
NO CRIMINAL CHARGES ARE
WARRANTED

KWTN Team Report

On the afternoon of last
April 27, 75-year-old Richard
Lionel Clements ran a stop sign
on his bicycle and was killed
when he was struck by a car
being driven by a 32-year-old
Big Coppitt woman.

After a five-month-long
investigation, the Key West
Police Department released the
investigative report this week.

Clements was traveling
south on 11th Street and, according
to a witness, he attempted to
cross Flagler Avenue “without
stopping or looking.”

Clements’ son, Jonathan
Clements, said that his father
may have died because the stop
sign on 11th Street may have
been hard to see and because
the driver of the car may have
been speeding.

Fast Buck’s Loses “Greeter”: GYPSY DEAD AT 17

The Dog Who Learned to Stand in Line

by Tony Falcone

Last Tuesday, I lost my
dearest friend. Actually, “friend”
seems too insignificant. Today I
lost my dog, Gypsy, who was a
member of my family for the
past 17 years.

Bill was on his way to
his 30th class reunion when he
stopped for gas in Key Largo.
While at the pump, a funny
looking brown and white dog
kept running between his feet
and nipping at his heals. When
he told the clerk inside that the
guy had a very sweet dog out
there, the man responded, “That
ain’t my dog! Someone dumped
him out of a car four days ago.”

When asked if he was taking
care of her, he snapped, “Hell
no! This is US1! That dog should
be dead by now.”

And so Gypsy entered
our lives.

PAGE ONE COMMENTARY: Mayor McPherson Instrumental in Fixing Vote at College

HE TELLS KWTN, “I NEVER
TALKED TO THE GOVERNOR
ABOUT APPOINTING MY SISTER
TO FKCC BOARD.” HE DIDN’T.
HE ASKED AN INFLUENTIAL
FRIEND TO DO IT

by Dennis Reeves Cooper

What can we say about
what happened at our little
college this week? The young
and beautiful president, hired
only a little more than two years
ago with much fanfare and
high expectations, was forced
to accept a nine-month paid
sabbatical (until the end of her
contract) to avoid being fired
by what would have probably
been a 3-2 vote of the college’s
board of trustees. Those three
trustees appear to have been
persuaded to fire the president
by a relatively small number of
college staff members. These
staff members complained
that the president was “really
mean.”

Note that we said staff,
not faculty. The faculty— those at the college who teach the
students— overwhelmingly
supported the president. And
they did it in writing. After a
faculty meeting last week the
full-time faculty submitted
to the board of trustees a formal
vote of confidence in the
president.

Students past and present
have also been very vocal in
their support of the president,
which make sense since her
highest priority was known to
be transforming Florida Keys
Community College (FKCC) to
a student-focused institution.
Makes perfect sense at a college,
right? But that had not been the
case at FKCC for decades.

Letters From Baghdad: Changing Tyme

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ken Davis’ Letters from Baghdad are
scheduled for publication every-other-week. They are excerpts
from his book-in-progress “Road to Baghdad.” Davis is the former
head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency here in the Keys
and was a candidate for sheriff in last year’s county elections.
“The Road to Baghdad” chronicles the tales and stories of the
women and men in Iraq, written as seen through Davis’ eyes.
The story is based on solid truth and written with a humorous
license. The names are changed to protect the guilty and confuse
the innocent.

by Ken Davis

“Tyme’s not coming
back.”

I looked up from my corner
desk to see a very happy
Marcy Cole standing in front
of me grinning ear to ear.
“Tyme’s not coming back,” she
repeated gleefully. “Isn’t that
fantastic?”

I smiled and agreed with
her. “It’s great Marcy. You did
a fantastic job with Taylor. He
owes you.”

Whenever a Contractor
goes home on leave his company
and his friends hold their
breath to see if he will return.
All too often they phone in
their resignation or write a
simple email announcing their
decision to stay at home. In the
case of Taylor Tyme, the announcement
was a good piece
of news. I would miss Taylor
Tyme, but his failure to return to
Baghdad was a personal success
for Marcy. More importantly It
meant a broken heart had found
a mend.

Rhonda: Manbaby

by Rhonda Linseman-Saunders

“Your little girl is so cute!”

I hear that a lot about my 16-month-old boy. The
most recent incident was in the lobby of the doctor’s
office. He was wearing an unquestionably boyish
onesie with blue and black all-boy sandals.

And his feet and hands are twice the size of most
toddlers his age. At the risk of sounding stereotypical,
doesn’t that scream Boy? If people really think
he’s a girl, they must think she is a freak of nature
with those paws.

I smiled graciously at the woman in the lobby.
“Oh, thank you,” I said. In that situation, there’s really
no point at all in causing embarrassment.

The gender confusion on the part of well-intentioned
observers may have something to do with my
son’s very sweet face and gentle eyes, which he gets
from his dad, by the way. But the confusion is probably
most related to my refusal to cut his hair.

Free Markets Versus Free Health Care

by Hal O'Boyle

My readers in their comments about medical care uniformly show a great, and on the evidence, inexplicable trust in Uncle Sam’s ability to do exactly what he promises. They show an equal distrust of ‘greedy’ insurance companies. While mistrust of insurance companies is understandable, often based on personal experience, faith in government’s ability or even desire to keep its promises demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of how governments and free markets work.

This misunderstanding is only made worse by the debate’s focus on insurance. Even Americans who know there’s no free lunch are succumbing to the ‘entitlement’ mentality. The debate over insurance is not about how to reduce costs, it’s about how to get other people to pay those costs for us. No one is looking for the reasons health care costs are increasing at such alarming rates, and even less at how insurance itself drives prices higher. If you had speeding ticket insurance, would you drive faster?

There is widespread agreement that free enterprise and free markets made America rich. There is a great misunderstanding, however, about what government has done and can do to ‘correct’ what are labeled ‘market failures.’

Keep reading here.

PTKW Presents A Scene Study Showcase

PHOTO: VALERIE CARR AND GREGORY JAMES rehearse a scene
from “The Cicadas” by Lucia Vergunst

The People’s Theater of
Key West will present their
scene study showcase on September
27, 8:00 P.M. at Kelly’s
Caribbean Bar & Grill. It will
be particularly exciting because
the audiences will be asked
to vote on which of the plays
they’d like to see go on to be
the theater company’s first full
production in the spring.

One of the scripts, developed
by Connie Hurst,“The
Junkies in Washington Park,”
is about transgendered Raymond’s
desperate struggle to
get the money she needs to
save sister Odetta and mother
Euphemia from inner-city
poverty, drugs, gangs and
despair.

Hurst developed the
script with a little help from her
friends, participants in the first
round of a playwriting workshop
run through the People’s
Theater of Key West.

Mosquito Control Asks Residents, Businesses For Help in Dengue Prevention Efforts

Inspectors with the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District
are moving door to door in Old Town Key West, asking residents
to unlock their gates and open their yards in the search for
containers where pools of standing water may have developed
and mosquitoes that carry the dengue virus may be thriving
and reproducing.

Last week, Monroe County Health Department Administrator
Bob Eadie issued a health advisory on the presence of dengue
in Key West. Two cases of the mosquito-borne illness have been
confirmed as having been acquired in Old Town within the past
six weeks. Both individuals have fully recovered.

1985: Attorney Hendrick’s Clients Allegedly Offered Commissioners Bribes

by Dennis Reeves Cooper

We were reminded again
this week that history often
repeats itself. Former City
Commissioner Jimmy Mira
came to see me and brought in
a news clipping from the Miami
Herald, dated November
17, 1985.

The headline screamed
“Officials say developers offered
illegal checks.”

In the story, City Commissioners
Mira and Joe Balbontin
were quoted as saying that
they were offered $2000 each
by hotel developers just before
the commission was scheduled
to vote on the developers’
project.

In sworn affidavits, Balbontin
said he refused to accept
the check. Mira said he initially
took the check, thinking it was
a campaign contribution.

“But when I looked at
the check and saw that it was
more than the legal amount of
$1000, I immediately returned
it,” Mira said.

What makes this story
timely today is that the attorney
for the developers was Jim
Hendrick. You probably know
that Hendrick was recently convicted
of conspiring to obstruct
a federal grand jury and witness
tampering. Those charges stem
from the indictment of former
County Mayor Jack London
after he accepted a $29,000 bribe
from a real estate developer.

In the 1995 story, Hendrick
is quoted as saying the
developers offered the checks
in an attempted sting to catch
the two commissioners taking
bribes. He called the affidavits
“absolute garbage.”

In the article, Hendrick
said the idea of passing the
checks as bait to the two commissioner
was discussed at a
meeting with State Attorney
Kirk Zuelch. Hendrick said
he went to Zuelch after his
clients— the hotel developers—
told him that they thought Mira
and Balbontin were soliciting
money and other favors.

But when the Miami
Herald reporters questioned
Zuelch, he denied that he had
discussed any kind of sting with
Hendrick. Zuelch said he didn’t
know anything about checks
being offered to the commissioners
until he read about it
in the affidavits.