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 city had two special meetings recently to discuss the employment of the city attorney. Ultimately there was a 5-2 vote to terminate the contract of the city attorney without cause.
Henriquez explained, “We did have two special meetings. We had one on Monday, and the resolution that was on the agenda, it was just for cause, and that resolution failed and because we had not advertised without cause, we had to have another special meeting on Thursday, and the resolution for cause failed, and then without cause passed. That was a 5-2 vote, where the two votes were Commissioner Kaufman and myself.”
Jim Young, code compliance director, also resigned last week.
Henriquez said, “From my understanding, Mr. Young turned in his official notice to HR for retirement, and that was on this past Friday. So we’ll see how all that works out. In reference to the city attorney from an email that I received on Friday, Commissioner Lee would like to sponsor a resolution for our May 6 commission meeting, and that would be to appoint Kendal Harden, who is currently working here now, as acting interim city attorney, until we get a permanent city attorney in place, and I’m expecting that would be like reaching out to get a city manager. It’s going to take a process. They have to open up the applications, go through the process, do the background checks, and then present them to us, and then we go through the interview process, because the mayor and the commissioners, they are the ones that hire and fire the city attorney. So that process will come back to us, and I would assume and think that it would be about a two to three month process. So we need to have an acting interim city attorney in place shortly.”
Will there be severance for Jim Young?
Henriquez said, “I’m not exactly sure how all that process is going to work. That’s going to go through the human resource department. That’s more on the city manager side, and that’s his responsibility. So Raj Ramsingh and Jim Young were both put on a two week administrative with pay leave. Jim Young turned in his official notice for retirement on Friday, and I believe there is a determination meeting on Wednesday or Thursday morning for Raj Ramsingh.”
The state house did pass two bills last week that would disband the Tourist Development Councils in all counties of the state of Florida. The bill will now move to the Senate.
Henriquez said, “It would be devastating if they remove the TDC tax. People don’t realize how important and what it actually does for not just our city but county. Being in the tax collector’s office for 30 years and collecting bed tax, that’s a lot of money that’s generated that really helps our community and our county, not only just help lowering property taxes, but also for all these nonprofits. They just don’t realize the effect that it’s going to have on everyone. So if you can write a letter to our House of Representative and our Senator, please do so and let them know that you are against this vote. This is the last week in Tallahassee, and crazy things happen there during their last week. So everyone will be watching this very closely. And then, the rumors are not having to collect property taxes and/or doing away with our sales tax. So I’m not sure what’s going on, but hopefully they’re going to make the right decisions.”
The Song Writers Festival is coming up.
Henriquez said, “I’m going to welcome at the VIP reception for the Song Writers Festival and we’re going to kick that off Wednesday, at five o’clock. Saturday, we have the Song Writers Festival, free concert. That’s a special event. There is going to be a street closure, the 100 and 200 block of Duval Street, and that will be closed from 6am until midnight. So if you’re going downtown, just remember that 100 and 200 blocks of Duval will be closed for the Song Writers Festival. Saturday, we have our hazardous waste drop off event. It’s the first Saturday of each month, and that’s for Key West residents only, and that will be from 8am to noon. Then Friday for our plogging, we’re going to be plogging along South Roosevelt Boulevard, and that will start at 8, and then shortly after we do plugging, we’re going to do a marine cleanup along South Roosevelt Boulevard as well. So there’ll be support from boats and divers. So not only we’re going to do land, we’re going to do the water as well.”