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.
The Goombay Festival was this weekend and it was amazing.
Henriquez said, “Even with the rain that we had, it was just wonderful to see so many people out there Friday and especially Saturday night. But Friday, I was able to welcome everyone with my fellow Commissioners and our interim city assistant city manager, and big shout out to Marcus Davila and his staff for their efforts with the Goombay and cleaning up everything after each day. It was just a wonderful, wonderful turnout this weekend, and then also after Friday night going to Boombay, then I also went and announced the winners for the 2024 Fantasy Fest, king and queen. Friday night, all of the candidates raised $221,557, which benefited the SPCA. So it was an incredible Friday night for me and just so many things going on, and it was just an exciting weekend.”
More than $5.5 million has been raised over the history of the event.
Henriquez said, “Just to give you an example, last year, where they raised over $500,000 they announced Friday night that with that money, they were able to purchase a mobile veterinarian unit, so that should be coming out very shortly as well.”
Affordable housing is always a concern and one recent question is could the Navy help?
Henriquez said, “The commission passed a resolution back on October 10 requesting that the Navy consider developing the vacant 18 acres parcel at Sigsbee for their military personnel and civilian employees. We have commended and thanked our Commissioner Lee for bringing this forward, and we need to start having those conversations with our congressmen and our lobbyists so that we can start moving things forward. Like Commissioner Kaufman said, we do start here locally, but the ones that we really need to speak to are the ones that are in Jacksonville and Washington, DC, so that that way we can move these things forward, to be able to have the military and the civilian employees live on military property, and it’ll open up quite a bit of housing for us here in Key West.”
Fantasy Fest brings the whole city together, including the various departments.
Henriquez said, “Our police department and our fire department and all of the different partners that we have, we’ve had multiple Fantasy Fest meetings and communication to making sure that our city is safe and that it’s run very well and that it’s cleaned up after every event. So it’s a huge, huge effort for our city. But like I said, the communication and the partnerships here are wonderful.”
Even with Fantasy Fest, business continues in City Hall.
Henriquez said, “We do have some city official business on Tuesday, we have our HARC meeting at 5pm here at City Hall. Then, of course, on Tuesday as well, we have the pre TuTu parade from 5 to 8 on Duvall. Wednesday, we have the pet masquerade at the Coffee Butler amphitheater, benefiting the animal farm at the Sheriff’s Department. Thursday, we have the headdress ball starting at 6:30 at the amphitheater, and actually I will be judging that that night, so I’m very excited about that. And on Thursday night, we also have the Parks and Rec board at 5pm here at City Hall. Friday is early bird cleanup at City Hall this Week. So it’s going to actually be our cleanup here at City Hall and that’s going to start at 8am. Then you have the local’s parade, and then you actually have the Fantasy Fest parade on Saturday.”
Additionally, early voting starts today.
Henriquez said, “Make sure everybody gets out and votes. It’s very, very important. A lot of people say, oh, it’s just my one vote, but every vote matters, so please get out there and vote.”