Key West Mayor Dee Dee Henriquez joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the city.
Florida Keys Day will happen on Thursday in Tallahassee.
Henriquez said, “There’ll be a few of us traveling tomorrow to Tallahassee for the Florida Keys Day, which does take place officially on Thursday. I do look forward to meeting with the members of both the House and the Senate to advocate on behalf of our city. We will also be meeting with our lobbyists. These meetings will include discussions with the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, Senator Rodriguez, Representative Mooney, other different Senators and Representatives, and that’s why we’re going up a day early, because we have all of these meetings set up on Wednesday, privately with all these, and I say privately, but just exclusively for us with our lobbyists, on Wednesday, to be able to sit down for a few minutes of their time to be able to address our issues and our priorities, our concerns. And then Thursday, we’ll be meeting with the whole congregation of Monroe County, and we will all be walking the halls and representing not only our city but our county as well. Some of the examples that we’ll be talking to them about is the inflow and infiltration that we need to address and that’s about a million dollars. The Jose Marti project with FDOT. FDOT has that project now on North Roosevelt, which originally included the price of a storm water lift station. However, FDOT has since told the city that we could be accountable for approximately almost $7 million, so we’re going to be addressing that. The solid waste dewatering project, which is like $4 million. Of course, transportation and, matter of fact, one of our assistant city managers is up there currently, which is Rod, he’s already up there making appointments and meeting with the delegation in reference to transportation because we lost a lot of those grants, as everybody knows. And also talk about fire station three, Mallory Square, storm water lift station. So there is a lot to discuss. We have two full days scheduled in Tallahassee, and as I said, before I am continuing to build those partnerships with our leadership in Tallahassee and along with the rest of the municipalities and our county legislative department.”
Officials from Key West are also going to Washington, DC.
Henriquez said they will be doing “the same thing at the federal level. So we haven’t had a lobbyist at the federal level in a very long time, and I want to go up there and also try and build those partnerships up there in Tallahassee, letting them know that we are here and willing and able and that we need funding at the federal level as well, so we’ll talk about that in a couple weeks.”
Meet the mayor is today from 2 to 4 p.m.
Henriquez said, “I invite everyone to stop by and share your concerns, ask questions, or even talk about important issues affecting our city. Friday is going to be our Early Bird cleanup, starting at 8am and that’s hosted by Caleb and Calder Sloans, which is the awesome foundation for Chris Sloan. And we will be meeting in front of the parking lot at Strunk Ace Hardware, which is 1101 Eaton Street, and that starts again at 8am on Friday. And then Saturday we have the city of Key West that offers the residents only, which is on the first Saturday of every month. So it’s this Saturday, a free collection of household hazardous waste. So that’s your household chemicals, electronics, paint, that type of stuff that will be at Indigenous Park, 1801 White Street, and that is from 8am to noon.”
The Historic Architectural Preservation District is holding the weekly office hours Wednesdays from 8:30 to 12:30.
Henriquez said, “I believe it was successful last week, on Wednesday. So I think everyone is liking this concept of an open door policy, where you’re just able to walk in. If there’s nobody in the office, but you are able to walk in or wait a few minutes and be able to ask any questions or concerns that you have. With meet the mayor. I never knew what to expect, but I will tell you, it’s been very successful every Monday and people have come in and shared their concerns, and so I just think it’s a great concept, and transparency, communication, and all of the above. So it’s working out great.”
The workshop about the potential parking garage near the fire station on Simonton went well.
Henriquez said, “It was a great, spirited public workshop. There was a lot of questions, a lot of concerns, and I will tell you, I mean, the main concern there right now is the flooding and how it floods in that area. They all felt that the city should be concentrating on the flood issues right now, before they start talking about building a parking garage. But again, this is a public workshop. This is a work in progress, so getting, gathering all of this feedback back to the city and implementing, because they really had some great ideas in reference to even making sure that there was an electric station, for the electric cars to be able to charge their charging stations, and even for the E-bikes. So there was a lot of good, positive comments there, and then there was a lot of concerns. So like our city manager said it’s a work in progress. It was one of many workshops that I’m sure we’re going to have in the near future. But again, this is a project for all of us, so we’re taking all of these comments and putting them into play.”