Keys residents deserve a break.

Fed-up residents of the Florida Keys won't get the opportunity to vote on how $7 million of tourist taxes are divvied up.

That's because the Monroe County Commission, true to form, has beat a hasty retreat from the idea of putting the tourist controversy to a referendum. Commissioners evidently distrust the judgment of those who elected them.

In a panic is the county's Tourist Development Council, which devotes most of the 4 percent tourist bed tax to attracting more tourists. This includes sending council staff to such locales as Rio de Janeiro and Moscow and Copenhagen, ostensibly to chum up interest in the Keys.

Some people want more of the TDC …