Bill Hunter Announces Run for Monroe County Commissioner, District Two
Sugarloaf Key resident Bill Hunter has filed to run for Monroe County Commissioner, District Two, which runs from the Seven Mile Bridge to Boca Chica Key and includes a small portion of Marathon.
“I am running for county commission to represent all of the Florida Keys from the perspective of someone who lives, works and strives to protect the character of island communities within the Lower Keys. This local perspective is vitally important as the county recovers from Hurricane Irma,” Hunter said.
Hunter, a Republican, owns Key Tel, a small telephone and data networking company. He and his wife Mary arrived in the Lower Keys in 2000 after his retirement from the Bell System. He and Mary raised their two sons in Missouri after his service in the US Air Force.
His top priorities are residential quality of life, the environment, fiscal responsibility and sustainable tourism and business. He places importance on rebuilding the small businesses along US 1 that provide the goods and services to people in the unincorporated areas of the Keys.
“Every island community is different and residents chose their Key because of its environment and lifestyle. Growth must be managed with those residents in mind,” Hunter said. “Assuring tourist lodging, restaurant and entertainment capacity remains full while not spilling over into residential neighborhoods helps both the tourism industry and residents.”
A fixture at County Commission meetings for seven years, Hunter serves on numerous governmental committees, most recently being appointed to the county’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. As a member of the Climate Change Advisory Committee, Hunter helped craft the county’s Climate Action Plan. He also serves on the Marine and Ports Advisory Committee and is a board member of Last Stand.
A past president and public policy chair of the Sugarloaf Shores Property Owners Association, Hunter joined in 2017 with other community leaders to form the Lower Keys Alliance providing a forum for networking and discussing issues affecting the islands in the Lower Keys CommuniKeys Plan area.
Bill Hunter will be a welcome addition to the County Commission. He has already volunteered many hours of service, particularly on the issue of affordable housing.
Thank you for filing, Bill. Wish you had run in 2014. Of the announced candidates for District 2, you are the only one with deep, broad knowledge of how the county government works, and doesn’t work; and of the issues peculiar to the lower Keys. The very last thing the lower Keys need is another county commissioner who lives in Marathon. That was proven in spades by current District 2 county commissioner George Neugent, who has announced he will not seek reelection in 2018.
That said, I think the immediate focus of the next District 2 county commissioner, and of all of the county commissioners, should be the removal of the remaining Hurricane Irma debris, starting with District 2, from the land and the canals. The next two pressing issues are to clean up and fix the 500, or so, foul-water canals, which predated Irma, or to fill them in; and to partner with the Housing Authority, not with private developers, to build actually affordable rental housing on county-owned land. The next pressing issue is to put an end to illegal transient rentals. The last thing the county needs is new residential development by private for-profit developers; houses, condos, townhomes, hotels, motels, lodges, etc. , and more tourists.