You say the study will show us what impact channel widening will have, that way you can make an informed decision. The study will only show if it it is feasible and what environmental impacts it will have. It will not show the impact that increased ship size with more passengers will have on our quality of life if we live/work in Old Town, detrimental affects on the long term tourists (who pay 93% of our incoming tourist $), impact on traffic because of pedestrians or more scooters, conch trains, etc. We who oppose the study outright oppose what COULD come of it. Why waste the millions on a study to dredge where it is illegal to dredge? work with tourists every day and when they tell me how Duval was just "awful" on Thursday and what day should we go downtown when there aren't any cruise ships I let them know about the channel widening issue and ask them to write a letter to the chamber of commerce. The problem with extra large floating walmarts bringing in more fat, cheap morons (yes I'm just going to say it) is that the effect on our long term tourists will not be known until its too late. There is no study to determine this, but as many repeat long term visitors as KW has, we should not want to push away the low impact, higher dollar and larger percentage of the tourism based economy! There are very few that will benefit from larger ships (Swift et al, Rossi, Saunders etc) but many stand to lose if our long term tourists are driven away by the cheap tackiness accompanied by more cruise ship passengers. Remember when Ed Swift was so upset by MTVs Real World house being in his neighborhood? Because there were lights, cameras and action all day and night? Not to mention all the traffic from the gawkers driving by? I wish he had to live in his fake little artisan village, buy that garbage made in China, listen to the conch train bell and speech as it goes by him a few times and hour and congregate with the walmartians getting off the cruise ships every day.

The pro mega ship crowd does not want to have the real dialog. Do we need more, larger ships in port at once? They would rather make it about if dredging is possible and environmental issues. The real question is what do we want to focus on in this town? Enhancing the 93 percent of our tourism economy that has nothing to do with ships, or do we want to further degrade the experience of these tourists to protect a relatively small group of businesses that feed off low end cruise passengers. Our air traffic is up. Our occupancy is up. We can easily grow our more valuable base of tourism and completely eliminate these ships. This is not the 1980s when town was deserted for 8 months a year (although the same person still runs the chamber!) town is packed all year and we should be worrying about building high end, long stay visitors, and not spend millions so swift can bring in 20 more trolleys and 10 more ducks. Enough is enough! That is what the issue is about, not some stupid study to justify a bad decision.

The Commission should have done their job and approved the Study; however, rather than loose favor of their backers they put the question out to referendum. It's a shame this battle has to carry on for another year because the voters nor the Commission can make an informed decision about the overall impact of channel widening without real facts. Right now we have one group yelling not to widen the channel because it will cause environmental damage when the real reason might just be that this group is opposed to everything. You have another group pushing to widen the channel because it secures the future of the cruise industry coming to Key West. And then you have all the rest of the voters who don't have enough information to separate fact from fiction. So while I have not made up my mind on whether to support the widening of the channel; I do know that I will vote YES for the study.

The City Commissioners could have done everybody a huge favor.....by bringing this up to a referendum vote......over a year ago...at the very beginning. A blind man could see that this issue.......was and is a "hot potato". Why they let it go this long.....is questionable. Things like this....should be left to the voters to decide, win....lose....or draw. Otherwise.....they beg serious duress.....on the Commissioners. Why do that?

It's crucial to understand that while non-residents, who exploit the Key West economy and its residents, get to speak at meetings, they should not vote in city referenda.

Even when limiting ballots to Key West taxpayers, probably fewer than half of them bear the burdens of the impacts that cruise passengers create.

The large percentage of Pro-Cruise comments that originate from outside of KW should be disregarded.