Key West City Commissioner Margaret Romero, who routinely is the lone holdout vote on the seven-member panel, this week stuck up for the release of biotech mosquitoes to combat disease as the Zika virus threat looms over the Florida Keys.

And among the Key West commissioners on the genetically modified mosquito issue, Romero stood alone.

“This one looks the most viable,” Romero said, of mosquito-fighting tools available in the Keys. “I would proudly sponsor a resolution that says we’re OK with going ahead with it.”

Romero said she’s been attending Florida Keys Mosquito Control District board meetings and has heard all of the research.

Commissioner Jimmy Weekley and Mayor Craig Cates disagreed, saying they should listen to the voters on Nov. 8 when a countywide referendum will ask whether they want a trial release in Key Haven of GM mosquitoes by the Oxitec company. The company says the offspring of its GM bugs die quickly, which should result in the population decreasing.

While the referendum is nonbinding, Mosquito Control Board member Jill Cranney-Gage and other members have said they will support what the voters decide when the board takes its post-election vote. Weekley said the majority of Key West commissioners would also support the voters’ decision.

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes spread Zika, which can cause birth defects in the children of pregnant women. The Keys confirmed its first case of travel-related Zika last week.

Romero’s announcement came during a presentation by outgoing Mosquito Control District Director Michael Doyle, who asked Key West city leaders on Tuesday to shed the perception that the island has forbidden any release of biotech mosquitoes — the project that has drawn protests from locals who believe it’s environmentally unsafe despite government approval.

“It puts a negative spin on the project as a whole,” Doyle said of the city’s 2012 resolution concerning GMO mosquitoes.

The commission in 2012 approved a resolution banning GM mosquitoes within the city limits but with four conditions that Doyle says have now been met, namely the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent final approval of the project.

During his Key West presentation, Doyle, who is moving to North Carolina, ticked off the reasons the GM mosquitoes will work here, starting with the fact that islands are the perfect place to target the bugs, who hate flying over water and like to stay in people’s yards.

Doyle claims a 90 percent reduction of mosquitoes would come with the lab-grown GM bugs that have been deemed to be safe for the environment but the project’s opponents focus on other ideas.

“We found out with this project, facts aren’t important,” Doyle said.