A Key West planning board member gets sacked after publicly criticizing water utility

A member of the city of Key West’s planning board, a volunteer civic body that advises elected city commissioners on development matters that come before them, wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper in April that was critical of the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority — the utility responsible for supplying fresh water throughout the island chain as well as treating its sewage.

That was enough for the city commissioner who the board member, Gregory Lloyd, serves under to recommend to her colleagues that he should be removed from his position.

Last week, all but one agreed that the man who the city’s mayor said is perhaps one of the most dedicated, prepared and qualified on the board, and who attends almost all the meetings, should be ousted from the post.

“Greg Lloyd has the highest attendance on the planning board, even higher than the chair on the planning board. We have members who haven’t attended but 50% of the time,” Mayor Teri Johnston said from the dais of a city commission meeting Thursday, defending Lloyd.

“He has done the work. It was all judged by a fiery letter to the editor,” Johnston said.

However, Hoover stuck to her decision, and convinced the other commissioners to vote with her, insisting that Lloyd serves at her discretion.

“There is no entitlement to this position if values don’t align,” she said.

Utility under pressure

The FKAA has been plagued with serious problems in recent months, most notably three underground water main breaks in one week in March that threatened to starve the Keys of potable water. The FKAA’s infrastructure is still not operating at full capacity and continues urging residents and visitors to conserve water.

Replacing the 40-plus-year old pipe system is a massive undertaking that will cost between $1 and $2 billion, the utility acknowledges, cash it doesn’t have available.

That concession prompted Lloyd, who’s sat on the Key West Planning Board since 2016, to write a letter to the Key West Citizen newspaper criticizing the FKAA for not planning ahead and calling for a moratorium on future development until the infrastructure is better able to serve more people in the Keys.

The Miami Herald has reported several stories based on documents it’s obtained detailing how the FKAA’s five-year-old, $1-billion centralized wastewater system has had a series of serious sewage leaks and is need of repairs topping $16 million.

‘He wanted his day in court’

Lloyd was originally appointed to the board by Hoover’s predecessor, Margaret Romero, but Hoover has since re-appointed him twice. His current term would have ended in 2025.

Hoover insisted that it was “not true” that the letter alone was the reason she sought to sack Lloyd, but she went on to say that the content of the letter could lead developers to believe he was a prejudiced against their applications for project approval.

“His position could have very well jeopardized anything going forward with that item, and this time, Mr. Lloyd, while not quite as explicit, did call out several things in the letter to the editor to FKAA, including talking about swimming pools, irrigation systems, vacation rentals, remodels, renovations, all of which at one point or another, could come before the planning board,” Hoover said.

Planning board members don’t make decisions, rather they make recommendations to city commissioners.

Hoover said she first tried to talk Lloyd into stepping down. He refused. She then tasked the city attorney to ask him to leave. Again, he refused.

“He wanted his day in court,” Hoover said.

‘Bubba pixie dust’

Lloyd spoke on his behalf at the meeting, aiming harsh criticism at those seeking his ouster as well as the original target of the letter in question, the FKAA, which he said is a hotbed for nepotism hires among entrenched Key West locals, known both pejoratively and affectionately — depending on point of view — as “bubbas.”

“I’ve spent hours and hours working on your behalf, and this is the thanks I get,” Llloyd said. “What kind of message if you pass this are you sending to your volunteers? Speak out, give your opinion and you’re going to be silenced? Bad message.”

Regarding the FKAA’s woes, he noted nothing was done to prepare for the inevitability that the aging system would need major repairs — and that the utility’s answer was to “sprinkle bubba pixie dust, and it will all magically disappear.”

“Instead they spend their time hiring unqualified cronies passing out lifetime benefits to their buddies and building a new Taj Mahal headquarters on Kennedy Street, all on our dime,” he said.

Commissioner Samuel Kaufman said he took issue with Lloyd’s negative use of the word “bubba” in criticizing the utility.

“I’m not from here, but I think of myself as a bubba, I’m sorry,” Kaufman said. “It’s a term of endearment, right? When we go to the mainland, everyone thinks of us as bubbas and we’re proud of that.”

Commissioner Clayton Lopez said he voted for Lloyd’s removal because “the appointee should reflect the agenda of the appointing commissioner.”

Commissioners Lissette Carey, Billy Wardlow and Jimmy Weekley didn’t speak on the matter before voting. Carey did not respond to an emailed question asking her the reason for their vote.

Weekley and Wardlow told the Herald in an email that retaining Lloyd or removing him is Hoovers prerogative.

“It was Commissioner Hoover’s appointment and if she wanted him removed she had the right to do,” Weekley said. “She really didn’t have to have a reason.”

Wardlow added that he’s removed members of Key West boards during his time in office.

“A Commissioner has the right to remove an appointed board member and re-appointed a new one during there term,” he said. “I have removed members and reappointed new members during my time on the commission.”