EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT KEY BISCAYNE

Dear Philip,

I saw your letter requesting information about Key Biscayne for your school project and figured that I could enlighten you about our "island paradise" and fill up my weekly quota of column space at the same time.

The first thing you might want to know is why it is called "Key" Biscayne as opposed to something more normal like Biscayne Island. To be truthful, I don't know. Florida is a melting pot of languages and they all sit there and boil and stew until some weird word pops out of a bubble and becomes part of the local lexicon. I think "key" comes from "cay" which comes from "cayo" which comes from the Planet Cayon, home of the first truly illegal aliens to inhabit this place.

Actually, if you want to know more about Key Biscayne, you can check out an Internet website at: http://www.key-biscayne.com. Here you'll find all sorts of informative things like a map, places of interest, business-related stuff and a five-day weather forecast. You also will find our newspaper, The Islander News, or at least parts of it. One section has news of the week, which this week includes stories about the new causeway toll system, the sanitary sewer controversy, a house which might be torn down, the Winterfest celebration and other captivating, late-breaking items.

Another section describes "Key people," from a determined little lady who traveled to 22 states and overseas to unearth the true history of Key Biscayne, to an all-American World War II hero, to a Cuban-American who runs the nation's most renowned Hispanic Theater along with many other colorful characters who inhabit this island.

In another part of the website, you'll find my "Tropical Debris" columns, which are mostly about my three-year-old son Glen and only of interest to me, his mom and grandmoms. But sometimes, I have occasion to actually mention Key Biscayne.

And in another section, you'll find alternative affairs stories by Jodi Rodgers, our alternative affairs reporter. These are articles about alternative healing practices such as dolphin therapy, alternative sports such as the Eco-challenge and other alternative-type things which probably got their start in the alternative state of California before drifting east. Although Jodi herself is a Florida native, she is very Californian in nature, evident by the fact that she eats things like sprout and humus sandwiches.

So I would urge you to visit that website and even e-mail us, because it can get very lonely in cyberspace. Back in the physical world, the geography of Key Biscayne is such that the Village is sandwiched between a county park and state park on an island that you could ride the length of on your bicycle in 10 minutes, unless your bicycle got stolen, which is probably the most common crime out here. People out here would rather spend their time on the beach or playing tennis rather than waste it on locking up their bikes. People who steal bicycles appreciate that.

I mention crime because when people talk about South Florida, and the Miami area in particular, "crime" seems to be one of the first words out of their mouths. Even though thousands and thousands of foreign and domestic tourists have survived vacations in and about the Miami area in the past several years, a handful who were tragically murdered got a lot of international publicity and thus gave our part of the world a bad reputation. Well, on Key Biscayne, we haven't had a murder in years.

So crime is one of the least interesting things about this place, despite that fact that it's only seven miles from downtown Miami, where murder is more of an everyday occurrence.

To get to Key Biscayne from Miami, you have to drive along the Rickenbacker Causeway, which is a toll road. Key Biscayners are some of the only people around who actually have to pay money to go home, and when the county tried to raise the toll rates this year, the people, led by Key Biscayne Mayor John Festa, fought the evil empire known as the public works department and won. Another big topic that takes the place of crime in our newspaper is an ongoing controversy over whether or not to install sanitary sewers to take the place of septic tanks on part of the island. But it's not the kind of subject you want to dwell on, especially around the dinner table. Another big topic is whether or not to build a community center.

These issues and others are discussed by the Village Council, a group of seven elected officials who determine policy at their bi-weekly meetings, which are televised and generally run four hours without commercials. Tapes of these meetings are available to the public and very popular with people who otherwise have trouble falling asleep.

The Key Biscayne government is only five years old. Before that, the Village was run by Dade County, which became Metro-Dade County and is now Miami-Dade County. You've got to figure that if the county has to keep changing its name, something's fishy. The people out here decided that they could govern themselves and spend their tax dollars more wisely than the county, and they pretty much have since incorporating, which is what you call it when a town establishes its own government.

If there are any poor people on Key Biscayne, I haven't seen them since I started working here over a year ago. Houses start at about $300,000 and go up into the millions. I guess that's why there's not much crime here. Rich people don't steal cars or snatch purses to support their families and/or drug habits. Some famous people live here: actor Andy Garcia, who owns a big house even though nobody here at the paper can say for sure what movies he's been in; President Nixon's old pal Bebe Rebozo; and Emerson Fittipaldi, a champion race car driver who has a penchant for surviving motorized vehicle accidents involving race cars and at least one ultra-light aircraft.

A lot of the people who live here are from Latin and South America, so you hear Spanish as much as English when you're out on the streets and in the stores. There are three small shopping centers, but no big malls, movie theaters, bowling alleys, miniature golf courses or other cool spots where kids might hang out. This is one reason why a lot of parents out here want the Village to build a community center.

In the center of town, the Village Green has a couple of soccer fields and a wonderful playground for little kids called the Tot Lot. Scouts and athletic teams abound, so there are a lot of activities for kids who like those types of things.

One of the nicest aspects of Key Biscayne is the weather, which is tropical so you can wear shorts about 90 percent of the year. Fishing, sailing, jet-skiing, swimming, diving, tennis and sunbathing are popular pastimes. For adults, construction and the selling of real estate are probably the most popular pastimes. Two huge developments are now being built that will increase the population and tax roll of the Village by about one-third. After they are completed, there won't be enough undeveloped land left to build anything bigger than a closet in the Village.

The biggest event of the year here is the Fourth of July parade, during which even bankers and lawyers can be seen wearing ridiculous hats. The Lighthouse Run 10K race and Key Biscayne Art Festival are another two big events.

Mostly, Key Biscayne is a quiet little community. Come here after dark and the most activity you're bound to find is raccoons rummaging around trash bins. People like it that way. If they want night life, bustling Coconut Grove and glitzy South Beach are just short car or boat rides away.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about Key Biscayne is that it is a barrier island, which means it's like a giant sand bar that should theoretically shift around with the motion of the ocean. But there's not much shifting it can do with umpteen million tons of concrete dumped on it.

Still, the exposed beach is washing away. The natural source to replenish the sand was cut off years ago by the dredging of a channel leading from the Port of Miami to the ocean. So to keep the beach and island intact, the Villagers have to import and distribute mountains of sand at great expense.

The island of Key Biscayne has been around for about 2,000 years, which is just the blink of an eye in geological terms. Chances are that it won't be around for another 2,000 years, which makes this whole place a rather ephemeral entity. Of course, by the year 3,997, your state, California, will have broken off and fallen into the Pacific and New York will be a giant penal colony and terminators will be stalking the earth seeking humans to destroy. Meanwhile, Key Biscayne will be resting peacefully on the bottom of the sea with little evidence that civilization ever existed here except, perhaps, for the crumbling remains of a late-20th century sanitary sewer system.

I hope, Philip, that this helps you with your project. If not, at least we filled up a lot of column space.

Good luck and come visit us sometime.

Sincerely yours,

Gary Editor's note: This column is a response to a request for information about Key Biscayne from a fifth grade student in California named Philip Burton. Anyone who would like to help Philip with his report about Key Biscayne can write to him at: Valencia Elementary, 25661 Paseo de Valencia, Laguna Hills, CA 92653.