Key West Mayor Dee Dee Henrique’s joined Good Morning Keys this morning on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM to talk about what’s been going on in the city.
The city commission met last week — and it was a long one.
Henriquez said, “It was an eight hour meeting. It was a long meeting. We haven’t had one of those in a very long time. But it was very productive, and we were able to get a lot of things done. So, one of the highlights was the Garrison Bight live aboard and the Commission had considered a 20% increase. That was rejected and then agreed to leave in place the existing terms, leaving the annual CPI adjusted for every October, the rate is 17.18 per foot plus the CPI. So there was a lot of discussion. The commission also agreed to grandfather the transient, long term live aboards, and their rents will remain the same as well. So that was a lot of discussion, long time coming. There’s a lot of workshops involved in that over a year, but we were finally able to come to a conclusion, vote on it, and check that one off the box and move forward. So we were very happy about that.”
The Yacht Club was also discussed.
Henriquez said, “The commission voted to approve the resolution to review the lease at the Yacht Club. The city needs to determine if the Yacht Club is in compliance with the lease provisions. If there are any of these violations that need to be rectified, our interim city attorney will identify them, and I believe they have 10 days to be in compliance. So we’ll see what happens when our interim city attorney looks over that resolution and that lease.”
Bayview Park was also on the agenda.
Henriquez said, “A lot of discussion about that, and the commission approved the installation of the artificial turf at the Pepe Hernandez field in Bayview Park. I am really excited to get things started at Bayview and this is going to be a multi use field, and the field will be safe. So I was very happy about the Bayview Park. We also agreed on the building permits in reference to the grand jury report. So the commission also agreed to hire an independent firm to review all building permits issued from 2020 to 2025. I felt it was premature to hire an independent firm the last time Commissioner Kaufman had brought this resolution to the commission, as we didn’t have the grand jury report, and city staff has already done an investigation on those first seven addresses that were presented by the grand jury. So we’re going to start digging deep and going through all those building permits from 2020 to 2025, so there’s going to be a lot of work that has to get done with those addresses. “
The city attorney search was also discussed.
Henriquez said, “The commissioners passed a resolution for the city attorney advisory committee to have an address, a residency requirement that could live from the city of Key West up to the Mile Marker 33 in Big Pine, but they do have to work in the city of Key West, so we’ll see what happens there, in reference to who the commissioners appoint for their advisory committee. We do have a special meeting that came out of our commission meeting on June 25 starting at 5pm in the chambers. It’s in reference to the grand jury report. So we will go over that at that special meeting, and I will tell you I have already started working with our interim city attorney and making sure that we have checks and balances and resolutions in place based on the grand jury’s recommendations. There was quite a few recommendations, but I will tell you, at that meeting, you’ll see a lot of changes that are going to happen within our city hall.”
Will there be votes at that special meeting or is it just a fact finding meeting?
Henriquez said, “I’m hoping both. I will have resolutions out there to put things in place or update or change our ordinances on how we do things. So based on the grand jury’s recommendation report, I’m taking that very, very, very seriously, and we’re going to go through item by item to make sure that we are, like I’ve always said, continuing to move our city forward.”
The awarding of the contract for implementation of the Key West water quality monitoring program has been deferred.
Henriquez said, “The commission had tabled their vote until the evening session, when we had discussion about it in the morning to consider awarding the contract to RES Florida Consulting Inc, and right before the vote, I had asked a couple of questions about the irregularities of the request for proposal and asked for clarification from our interim city attorney before taking a vote and then returning back to the evening session, we were told that Mote now had a score of 90.4% and our RES had 90. Wo there was some calculations errors on the score sheet. With further discussion, the commission did agree to defer the decision to a special meeting in July. So I’m hoping to get with the city manager and the clerk today so that we can come up with a date in July. Because I do know that we have our budget meeting in July as well. So I’m hoping either we can add it to that meeting, or we may have to have a special meeting. So I will find that out today.”
The chickens have come up recently in social media.
Henriquez said, “The day before the commission meeting, I guess around 3:30 in the afternoon, Dorian’s phone just started ringing one after another, and I said, Dorian, what is going on with the phones? And he was like, Mayor, I don’t know. They’re all asking me about chickens. I said, what about chickens? And he’s like, no, they say it’s going to be on the agenda at five o’clock and please save the chickens. I’m like, it’s not even on the agenda. So from my understanding, somebody had put something out there on social media stating save the chickens, make sure you’re at the commission meeting at five o’clock. They’re going to decide to get rid of them, euthanize them and that was far from the truth. There was no agenda item on the commission meeting. We are not planning to catch them. We have no plans to hire any chicken catchers. The Key West Wildlife Center has for many years provided service to the community and accepting trapped and injured birds and rehoming them on farms on the mainland. So just for the list your listeners out there, there are no plans to hire any chicken catchers.”
Hurricane preparedenss is upon us.
Henriquez said, “Alyson Crean has been doing a great job getting that information out there, whether it’s hurricane tips or what’s going on in our city. So please follow Facebook for the city of Key West, and she does give out accurate information and things that everybody needs to know. So she’s doing a great job and we depend on her on disseminating that information. Today we have our Sustainability Advisory Board meeting starting at 2:30 here at City Hall. Then on Wednesday, we have the Key West Bight Board. Their meeting starts at four o’clock here at the city hall as well. Thursday, Commissioner Castillo is having his District Six quarterly meeting starting at six o’clock, and that’s at the Frederick Douglas Bahama Village Community Center. And then Friday, we have the early bird cleanup at the Key West fire station, number two on Simonton Street. We will meet in the parking lot at the fire station.”