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.
National Night Out will be held at Truman Waterfront Park in Key West tomorrow from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Henriquez said, “We’re really excited about that for the National Night Out. It’s a family event. The Key West Police Department and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office are teaming up to host a family friendly event, and there will be an exciting array of displays, equipment that are used by law enforcement, firefighters, emergency first responders, the military and some of our community partners. So you can expect everything from special teams to multiple vehicles and boats and canines, horses. So it’s going to be a great family event. I’m taking my grandchildren out there. They’re excited. So yes, I look forward to seeing everybody out there.”
The city commission will meet on Wednesday.
Henriquez said, “We had our last City Commission meeting in June. July was very active for us as far as meetings when we weren’t supposed to have any meetings in the month of July, except for our budget. So we’ve been very busy, and today I will be preparing for our City Commission meeting on Wednesday starting at 9am here at City Hall. So there’s a lot of things going on. There’s approximately 51 consent agenda items and a total of 77 items on the agenda. So it is a full agenda starting at 9am. Some of the things that we will be talking about will be authorizing the purchase and installation of artificial turf at the Coffee Butler amphitheater. Rejecting all proposals pursuant to Section 2-834(4) for the rehabilitation, lease, of the Cable Huts, the historic 402 Wall Street building and the historical Hospitality House. There’s another item that’s going to be approving the recommendation of the city attorney screening committee, and that’s to retain outside legal counsel to serve as a city attorney for the city of Key West for a maximum of 12 to 18 months. We do have four applicants out there, but they feel that their recommendation is to retain outside counsel for 12 to 18 months until we can maybe get more applicants. There will be a proclamation honoring the rainbow crosswalks and there will be a resolution for the rainbow crosswalk, giving our city attorney direction. It will be official with the resolution. And there will also be another item amending and adjusting the sewer rates from $43.85 to $46.04, so that’s a $2.19 increase.”
Another resolution on the agenda will involve removing Lissette Carey from the position of Vice Mayor of the City Commission and naming Commissioner Donie Lee as Vice Mayor.
Henriquez said, “I did make that announcement based on the grand jury report to remove her. That is correct, and hopefully it will be the will of the commission to make Commissioner Lee our vice mayor. So we’ll see how that works out. Another developing story on Thursday where Commissioner Carey filed a lawsuit against the city clerk, Supervisor of Elections and the organizer of the recall petition. The lawsuit does claim the recall petition lacks specific legal grounds for removal from office. So that was updating news on Thursday. Then when I did read the lawsuit, when I got to Exhibit C there, it included an affidavit from one of our voters who claimed she did not have ample time to read the recall petition that she signed. When I looked to see the name, it said Ashley Henriquez, and I thought oh my goodness, so our city clerk asked me, does your daughter live on Flagler Avenue? I said, no ma’am, she lives on Riviera Drive, and her name is Ashley Henriquez McMahan. So here I go again, having to put information out there to let everybody know that that person that signed the Exhibit C was not my daughter.”
The plogging will be hosted this Friday by the Children’s Montessori School located at 1221 Varela Street.
Henriquez said, “You can park here at City Hall, and that’s going to start at eight o’clock in the morning. And just to give an update on Mallory Square, following a thorough evaluation, we are moving the barricades closer to the water so that it will allow foot traffic. No vehicles allowed. That was good news. And other than that, we’re just very busy, and we are preparing for our City Commission meeting on Tuesday, and we’re doing great things and moving our city forward.”