Key West Mayor Dee Dee Henriquez joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about what’s going on in the city.
The new city manager has been selected – Brian Barroso.
Henriquez said, “It was a process, and we did our due diligence and interviewed the five candidates, and if we had any post questions, we were able to reach out to them and continue our interview process. Then at our last City Commission meeting, the Commission was able to go ahead and vote about that, and they chose Brian Barroso. It was on the first try, and he was able to receive four votes on the first try. So now the next step is to have our city attorney start the negotiation process and bring his proposed contract to the commission for a vote at our next commission meeting on January 7, 2025.”
Barroso lived in North Carolina, but previously had lived in the Keys and served on various committees.
Henriquez said, “He comes from a local family here, very, very involved in our community. He has brothers that work for the fire department, and he has a sister who is also involved in, I believe, in your noon Rotary. He is in the banking industry. I believe he started at First State bank, and then he went to now known as Truist and he was able to move up the ranks in Truist bank, and was able to transfer to North Carolina, and so now he’s going to be able to come home and serve the constituents of the city of Key West.”
Was it a surprise to have Barroso selected on the first round of voting?
Henriquez said, “Since it was my first time, I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was surprised. I thought we would probably have two or three votes in the process, but everyone, evidently saw what I saw, because I did vote for Brian Barroso, and he was able to get four votes on the first try.”
Another item from the last commission meeting was the postponement of the water quality partnership.
Henriquez explained, “That was between the city of Key West and the College of the Florida Keys. I had requested to postpone it. It wasn’t that I was voting against it. I just wanted to postpone it because I needed time to review that ILA. So it will be back on the agenda on the January 7 commission meeting. Commissioner Lee had an item on the agenda to request the maximum amount of building permit allocations, which we call BPAS from the state of Florida Department of Commerce in Monroe County based on the 2023 hurricane evacuation clearance time. So that had a conversation. It did pass, but we’ll have to see what happens with Tallahassee.”
The public art in Bahama Village was also discussed.
Henriquez said, “There was discussion about that, in reference to the art there. It did pass. We did have some discussion, but there’s always room for improvement, and we’ll see how that goes moving forward. So as long as we’re communicating and communicating with Bahama Village, I think everything’s going to work out.”
The 16th annual Climate Leadership Summit began Monday and will end on Wednesday.
Henriquez said, “Representing everyone will be from West Palm Beach, Broward, Dade and Monroe, so we’re really excited to host that.”
The HARC board will meet at 5 p.m. tonight.
Henriquez said, “Wednesday, it’s art in public places advisory board, and Thursday is planning board. So every night this week, we do have a board that’s going to be meeting. There’s a lot going on. We are very, very busy here at City Hall.”
City Hall will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
Henirquez said, “I would just like to take a moment again to thank Todd Stoughton as the interim city manager, for stepping up and to continue to move our city forward. So we can’t thank him enough for what he’s done from the day that our previous city manager was removed and he just stepped in the next day and continued to move our city forward. I just want to wish everybody to have a great week. Be safe, and I will speak to you next week.”