There goes the neighborhood

So now the city, in the guise of the Bight Board, which owns the property around the old seaport, is saying that Schooner Wharf may have to be demolished and built to FEMA standards.

This has nothing to do, cough, cough, with the erection of luxury condos, cookie-cuttered and Disneyfied and uglified as the new "Harbor Walk" across the street. Not that those folks might not want to look out at ordinary people having one hell of a good time.

Oh, no. The city, as the property owner, has to make sure it's all safe, and meets FEMA standards (as if anyone is going to seek shelter by boogying down to the water's edge to hear Caffeine Carl get his riffs off during a Cat 4?; as if FEMA and its great track record ought to move in formaldehyde trailers to make it all better?).

At least there is this. The Wharf rightfully advertises itself as "a last little piece of Old Key West." And the Bight Board, to its credit, recognizes that one factor it needs to preserve is "funkiness." (At its best, the Wharf makes Blue Heaven look like a sterile lab.)

How you adequately specify that in a request for proposals is beyond me. But what's not beyond me is that if the Wharf goes, that last little piece of Old Key West goes, too.

Thank you so much, Mayor McPherson.