Key West Mayor Dee Dee Henriquez joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the city.
City offices will be closed on Juneteenth, June 19.
Henriquez said, “City Hall will be closed in observance of Juneteenth, and we will have a celebration at the African cemetery on Higgs Beach. That will start at 9am on Thursday. So everyone will look forward to that as well.”
A new homeless shelter will have a ribbon cutting on Wednesday.
Henriquez said, “Oh my goodness, yes, we’re so excited to have the ribbon cutting ceremony this Wednesday. It’s going to start at 9am at the John Jones Navigation Center located in Stock Island, and that’s next to the jail at the Sheriff’s Department. I mean John Jones, he served for the city of Key West with unwavering dedication, and he worked from 1993 until his retirement in 2008. In 1997 he was appointed as the assistant city manager, working under then the city manager, and he did oversee the first creation of the first homeless shelter. So we’re excited and honored to have a ribbon cutting ceremony in honor of the John Jones Navigation Center. So yes, please come and it’ll be Wednesday at 9am. We haven’t seen the building yet, but we’re just so excited for this new development, and yes, that was one of my projects to try and complete and they did say May of 2025, so we’re only just a couple weeks behind.”
There is an upcoming special meeting to discuss the water quality project.
Henriquez said, “At our last commission meeting on June 4, after a long discussion during both the morning and the evening sessions, it was decided to hold a special meeting in July to interview the top two contenders, which was the RES Consulting and Mote Marine for the city water quality monitoring program. So the commission at that time will be able to ask questions and interview to both RES and Mote. So it will probably be during the budget meetings, which are July 22nd and 23rd. We do have the 24th in case it goes over. So we’re hoping to call for that meeting right after the budget meeting, so either the 23rd or the 24th, so that will be discussed at that time, and then hopefully we’ll be able to have a conclusion and an answer on who our group is going to be for our next water quality company.”
It looks like the state legislature might pass a budget soon, which will help with the city’s budget.
Henriquez said, “We are definitely looking forward to our budget this year. The new commissioners now would have had a full year of process in reference to learning the budget and knowing the budget, so hopefully everybody will be prepared and be able to have a streamlined budget this year. I’m looking forward to our meetings in July.”
Another issue was the Garrison Bight fees.
Henriquez said, “That was the longest commission meeting we’ve had in a long time, I believe, it was eight or nine hours. So that was another one that had a lot of discussion, which was great, great discussion, and there was a lot of people that did come forward during citizen comments. The will of the commission was to keep it at $17.18, per foot, plus CPI. I will tell you after the will of the commission voted there was a huge relief. They were very emotional and very appreciative that it stayed that way. It was a long time coming. It was over a year of lots of workshops, lots of communication, lots of research, lots of studies. So I’m glad that we were able to vote on that and continue to move forward.”
The grand jury report will be front and center Wednesday, June 25 for a special City Commission meeting starting at 5 p.m. in City Hall.
Henriquez said, “I am looking forward to that. I’m not sure if it will be a very long meeting and the reason why I say that is because on Friday, we already received our our book in reference to all of the 27 recommendations. A lot of these recommendations, the city’s already started implementing quite a few of them. So we’re going to run through those 27 recommendations, give everybody an update of what we have done thus far, what we have put in place, what’s coming in the near future. Because some of these, we may have to pass either a resolution or ordinance or change something, and there’s one that has to go out for a referendum whether they want to make our human resource department independent or part of the charter. So if it’s part of the charter that will have to go out for referendum. So I am looking forward to our meeting on June 25 so that we can let everyone know and your listeners know that we are taking this very seriously and that we are moving forward with these recommendations.”
Some of the light fixtures on White Street pier have been found to be unsafe.
Henriquez said, “We did get notice on Friday, and in an abundance of caution, the city of Key West has barricaded around the light poles at White Street pier. There’s a chance that some of them were structurally unstable, and so they just wanted to barricade them, just to make sure, they’ve been out there looking at them, and we’ll get an update today. But the pier itself is still open, so you can go out there on the pier. It’s just you can’t go around the light fixtures because they are barricaded.”
Green Drinks is every Tuesday. This week it’s 5:30 to 7:30 at the Side Bar in Key West.
Henriquez said, “That is Tuesday afternoon, and it’s Green Drinks in Key West, is a monthly social networking event focused on environmental sustainability, and it’s a place for individuals to connect and share ideas and collaborate on creating more sustainable futures. So she did want me to mention that, and that’s Friday after work.”