Key West Denies Artists The Right To Work!

It's an amazing thing, the damage that hurricanes inflict on a community. First, you wake up to find everything your own lost or damaged beyond repair, then you slowly begin the rebuilding process...

In some areas rebuilding takes days, others, weeks...others months, and depending on the city and its leaders...maybe years or even never!

The leadership of any given community will have the greatest impact on its recovery! If the leaders are focused and have a strong plan to rebuild that community, the recovery will flow in the hands of the residents who live there as they take control of their destiny, and save thier own city.

But in the city of Key West where the leadership appears to be in the hands of opportunistic bootlegger crackers and puppets of big developers...the residents of the city are being further evicted by the lack of management for available housing and even worse, the city leaders have now caved in to further big development by attempting to evict state lisenced vendors who up till recently, had legal approval and permission to sell their folk art on the streets of Key West.

It seems that the city of Key West recently made a decision to deny permits to artists who have state lisences, pay sales tax, deliver legitimate desireable tangible artistic products, merchandise or entertainment to the community and visiting tourists, and they provide financial reports to the State of Florida.

These people are not panhandlers who beg or ask for handouts. They are artists who sell their art. They are recognized by the State of Florida with vendors lisences, permits, and are running businesses, many approved by The Small Businness Association for emergency hurricane loans to rebuild thier businesses.

Most of these people sell real art work to people who choose to purchase it, and they are making a legitimate living. According to my sources, there is no defined criteria for determining what is true folk art and there is no appeal process for disputing an arbitrary decision made by some cronie who doesnt know folk art from a beer fart!

Now, in thier limited scandalous wisdom, these city leader ass clowns have chosen to align themselves behind some devious agenda to rid the city of Key West of its core of artist residents, deeming thier art as mere "Panhandling"

Maybe they have a plan to fill the once quaint City of Key West with T-shirt shops run by foreign investors who totally control the mercantile drive of the city by driving all the tourists directly into their shops without the distraction of street vendors who hardly compete with them in the first place...Maybe its something else, but whatever it is, it is clearly a violation of Floridas "Right To Work"

When these street art vendors who have been given the "Right To Work" in the State of Florida by virtue of a state lisence, and the bums who run the city of Key West do and end run on them...virtually chasing them off by depriving them of thier very livelihood, It makes you wonder if it was the hurricane that ruined Key West or the so called "rebuilding" at the hands of these scoundrels!

Shame on you Mr. Mayor! I looked for the official site for Key West Florida government where I could send you a direct email, but it appears that there is none! How fitting. What a perfect reflection for the leadership of this wonderful little town at the end of the world. No visible leadership!

As I understand it, there is virtually no appeals process for this assault on the art community of Key West, and so, blame it on the hurricanes for blowing away yet one more landmark, the personality of one of the greatest street art communities in America.

Yeah...the hurricanes! Its a well known fact that the hurricanes of Florida arent what you have to survive, it's the rebuilding process as the ass clowns who are in charge destroy peoples lives by stealing opportunities to force demographic changes that fit their agenda for big land deals and property and commerce theivery.

Hurricanes just knock a city down...Greedy developers and money grubbing merchants make it impossible to put it back up right!

I reccomend that anyone who is an artist or otherwise, living in Key West, write a letter to the Governor of Florida and your congressman! You are being ripped off.

jeb.bush@myflorida.com Do it Now!

The next shovel load of debris and garbage that gets hauled out of Key West should provide space on the back of the dump truck for your Mayor, and the City Commissioners. Bums!