Islamorada Village and School Board Continue Negotiating Multimillion-Dollar Founders Park Upgrades

Negotiations remain unresolved between the Village of Islamorada and the Monroe County School District over a multimillion‑dollar renovation of the baseball field at Founders Park, and the school board’s heavily revised draft was transmitted from the district attorney to the village attorney on Feb. 13. The village council had approved a draft license agreement on Jan. 8 after input from a citizens committee; the exchange of edited documents is the most recent concrete action in the talks.

Both sides are continuing to hash out differences over a license agreement, which details the obligations of the school district during construction and outlines school district use of the baseball field, which is owned by the village. The text and scope of the disputed license govern who is responsible for construction‑period obligations and how the district may schedule use of the village facility once renovations are complete.

Last year the village created a citizens committee to provide input for the draft license agreement for the renovation; committee members included team coaches, parents and people concerned about the park and they “heard from interested parties and contributed numerous hours of work on the agreement.” The village council “approved the baseball field license agreement with committee input by unanimous vote on Jan. 8; it was then sent to school district staff and school board members.”

The school board reviewed the village draft independently under Florida’s Sunshine Law constraints: “The board members reviewed the document independently, but because of the Sunshine Law, they could not compare notes. They could only send their comments to the staff and attorneys.” At the January school board meeting, board member Mindy Conn “expressed frustration because the other board members could not see her markup of the agreement sent by the village.” Following a Feb. 10 retreat in Key West, the board produced a document with extensive changes to eight pages of the village’s proposed agreement; that heavily revised document “went from the school board attorney to the village attorney on Feb. 13.”

As of March 5, 2026, there is no publicly disclosed specific dollar total for the “multimillion‑dollar” project, the names of the village and district attorneys who exchanged the Feb. 13 transmittal have not been released, and no construction schedule or post‑Feb. 13 vote date has been provided. Both the village’s Jan. 8 unanimous approval of its draft and the school board’s redline edits remain on the record as the principal milestones in the negotiation to date.

Negotiations continue to hinge on the license language that will govern construction obligations and future use of the village‑owned field; until both sides reconcile the eight pages of edits or transmit further revisions, there is no agreed framework that would allow the multimillion‑dollar upgrade to move into contracting or construction phases.