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.
A large group of people gathered at the 801 Bourbon Bar to support the rainbow crosswalks.
Henriquez said, “Yes, there was a community gathering at the 801 bar, and I will tell you, the support that came out to support the rainbow crosswalks was just amazing. I think we’re still counting to see how many people showed up on Saturday and just to see the support and the gathering of everybody in the community, and just to let everybody know there is a resolution on August 6 to support leaving the crosswalk rainbow there. So yes, it was exciting. A lot of people, just a lot of support, good vibes. It was a really good turnout.”
What’s going on with Mallory Square?
Henriquez said, “Following a thorough evaluation of the wharf and portion of Mallory Square, we received an update last Thursday, and they have gone through the report from WGI, and the recommendation is that they are allowing pedestrian traffic on the pier, but no vehicle traffic, so they’re going to open the east side of the wharf to pedestrians to be able to still continue to view our beautiful sunset or just visit the wharf during the day, but they are blocking off all access points that a vehicle could use to get up on the wharf, so there’s no vehicles and the sunset celebration acts, there will be none on the pier, they will still need to remain in the plaza. So it was great news to hear that a portion of that is s going to open up and still allow pedestrians to view our sunset and visit the wharf during the day.”
There was a discussion on water quality at the last city commission meeting.
Henriquez said, “We thought there was going to be a long evening that evening, and it ended up not taking too long, and our interim city attorney and had advised the commission to reject the RFPs that were submitted due to the possibility of a formal complaint regarding violations of the city’s cone of silence, which prohibits communication between a potential vendor or their representative and city staff. So a city elected official or members of an evaluation team, so with our interim city attorney, after she explained that she would need to determine whether such a violation that may have occurred if a complaint was issued, and after a thorough discussion, the commissioners did determine it to be in the best interest of the city and we unanimously voted to reject the bids, and we’re going to start fresh. They’re going to go out for an RFP and start fresh. So now it’s going to take a little bit of time to put all that back together. They’ll go out for the RFP, then they’ll open up the bids, and then the process just starts over again.”
How is the city budget?
Henriquez said, “It was a two day process last week, and the city proposed budget for 2025-2026, it totals nearly $270 million and that’s covering 19 departments and about a little over 550 city employees. So with the revenue the general fund, it does include a 92 day reserve, which calculates to about $218,000 a day. So we’re really good with our reserves. We don’t like to go below 72, so 92 is a really good number. So in the event of a hurricane or disaster, we are prepared. The proposed increase your millage rate was 1.95 millage rate, which is about a 4% increase from last budget. Last year when we were presented the budget on the first day, it was an 8% increase. So this year it’s a 4% increase, and we’ll see what happens. There’s still some unknowns in reference to the fire department and their negotiations, so we’ll see what the final budget is going to be. But we will approve the budget in September. We’ll have two budget hearings or meetings, and the final budget will be approved in September.”
The Citizen Review Board will meet tonight at 5 pm in City Hall.
Henriquez said, “Tomorrow, I will be participating in the TDC, the Tourist Development Council meeting that starts at 10am at the Harvey Government Building. And then Thursday, there is a code enforcement hearing starting at 1:30 and this week, plogging on Friday, will be hosted by Mount Sinai Medical Center. So we’ll meet in the parking lot of Mount Sinai, located at 3401 Northside Drive, and that starts at 8am and I will tell you last Friday, even with that huge downpour that Friday morning, we still had 40 volunteers soaking wet, but still picking up trash. So that was incredible. And then Saturday, we have the hazardous waste drop off event, which is residents only at 8am and they’ll be there until 12, and that’s at the Indigenous Park. This week, we’ll also be preparing for the August 6 commission meeting. And this month, it’s on a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday, and that starts at 9am. Even though we don’t have meeting scheduled for the commissioners, we do have a lot going on here at City Hall, so this gives us a good week to continue to move our city forward and be able to prepare for our meeting next week.”