Today's Opinions

After serving three years as the director of the Old Florida Celebration of the Arts, Mandy Cassiano is moving on to new adventures. Those of us who have had the pleasure of working with Mandy over the years gathered together on Sunday evening in the garden of the Island Hotel to acknowledge and applaud her good works and service to the community.

The City of Cedar Key received the Florida Energy and Climate Commission Grant with a goal of increasing energy efficiency for our city facilities, businesses and residents. An important part of the grant is the Educational Outreach Program which the City asked the Energy Advisory Panel (EAP) to develop and implement. Some parts of this educational program are required by the grant but it was left to the EAP to devise programs that fulfill the grant’s requirements. So the following is what we have come up with.

Permit me to comment on the recent letter from the Chamber of Commerce vis-a-vis my campaign statement urging the City of Cedar Key to stop the Chamber subsidy.  My thinking was as follows:  the City bought the Creswell House in 2008 for $330,000, and renovated it in 2010 for use as a Welcome Center at a cost of $67,807.  The City’s investment was thus $397,807.