Sam Kaufman, Key West City Commissioner for District II, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning o talk about what’s been going on in the city.
The bills in the state house looking to potentially disband the Tourist Development Council in the state of Florida have been a big topic of discussion recently.
Kaufman said, “I think there is a lot of analysis that needs to go into that, but I have long advocated that TDC monies, a much greater share should go into our infrastructure, as opposed to advertising dollars. So I do believe there is reform that is needed. Our streets are in bad shape. We need new back bathrooms downtown. We need, I mean, for just for the tourist infrastructure. So we really should, I think, take this opportunity to take a look at this and think about, how do we use these dollars to maximize them for the benefit of not only tourism, but the community as a whole, and make sure that our infrastructure, our roads and our schools and everything, look, we’re really in need of money for our new fire station, and we need to have better balance here.”
The Key West Conchs are advancing to the FHSAA state semifinals.
Kaufman said, “I’m a baseball fan, and I tell you, it’s fantastic. Our history in this town of baseball, and these young men, are really showing their stuff, and we’re really proud of them.”
A special meeting of the Key West City Commission happened last night where the Key West City Commission voted to terminate the employment contract of city attorney Ron Ramsingh, without cause.
Kaufman said, “I can tell you that I’m wearing the hat of a city commissioner, and my personal views are secondary. I’m thinking about what’s best for the community, and I’m thinking about my role as a city commissioner and I would say, first, we needed to look at the contract. The city of Key West have has three charter officials. What that means is there are three positions in the city that report directly to the City Commission, and that is the city attorney, the city manager and the city clerk, and each of those individuals for those positions have a contract directly with the City Commission and the city of Key West. The city attorney had a contract, which said that if he were to be terminated, that the City Commission had an option to terminate him with cause, which means, for wrongdoing or without cause, just to separate, without addressing any wrong. That was a part of the equation this week. The acting city attorney, her name is Cynthia Hall, she did excellent work. We as a community owe her a debt of gratitude for the work she put in this week. The bottom line was for the City Commission to decide if they wanted to pay out an additional $112,000 to Mister Ramsingh by deciding to terminate him without cause, or terminate him with cause and that would not require the additional $112,000 to Mister Ramsingh.”
Mayor Dee Dee Henriquez, Kaufman and Commissioner Michael Haskell voted in dissent.
The full payout to Ramsingh will be $221,000.
Kaufman explained, “Because there’s $109,000 that Ron Ramsingh as city attorney earned as accrued leave, meaning that while he was still working as city attorney for the years he was working in the city attorney’s office, he had already earned sick leave and vacation leave, and all of that was already earned, and therefore the $109,000 was not something at issue that could be changed. So the total turned out yesterday to be paid out to Mr. Ramsey within 15 days, pursuant to his contract, is $221,000. I was opposed to that because I think there was so much justification and evidence that cause was appropriate given the three indictments, there are more indictments expected to come, all of the text messages that just showed misconduct in general. I think most people who take an objective view of the evidence would say that any other employee, just any other organization, who had conducted themselves in this way would terminated with cause and not given a payout of $221,000.”
Has the issue been put to rest with this decision?
Kaufman said, “I fully expect that the State Attorney’s Office and the FBI will continue their work. I expect them to make more announcements, probably more arrests, probably more individuals involved, and unfortunately, our city leadership went down this road and should not have done so, and it’s going to take months and maybe years to recover from this. So it’s a problem, and it’s something that I have been vocal about for the last year, but we will redeem ourselves and we will recover. The city has work to do to repair its reputation, and we need to get back to that work. I think it’s reasonable to expect potentially many lawsuits that come from property owners, residents who feel that they have been unjustly treated by the building department, by the city legal department. We’ve already seen emails to that extent. We’ve already heard from members of the public who feel that way. I’ve heard from lawyers locally that their clients are telling them that they want to take actions. This is much bigger, potentially, and much more costly to the city than now maybe. I hope not, because, as your listeners know, I am an advocate for no raises in taxes. I don’t think there’s any basis for it, and this will just create a scenario, potentially where taxes have to be raised, and that was one of the reasons why I voted the way I did yesterday, is I believe that extra $112,000 should have gone to the taxpayers and potential savings in our budget process. That’s been my frustration the last year, is the lack of progress on a host of issues. It’s because there’s been this bottleneck in our leadership in City Hall. We had a whole process where we had an interim city manager, as you recall, for the better part of seven or eight months, and just basically in a holding pattern in management. So this entire episode, has been a difficult period for the city of Key West this entire past year, and now we have an opportunity to move forward, and I’m hoping that the city is going to take the high road and really look at best practices and how to ensure that this never happens again.”
Who will be the next city attorney?
Kaufman said, “We need to get to the business of that. I brought that up at the meeting last night, because technically speaking, we don’t have a city attorney, so I’m very concerned about that. We really should have been well ahead of this issue and had a contract in place with the city attorney. I think your listeners will be reading about that issue, probably in the next news cycle, because we’re sort up in the air right now, and that was a little bit of a misstep, in my opinion. But in any case, that’s really the focus this week, and then we have a City Commission meeting on May 6, so we’re going to get to the business of so many things like our sewer system and affordable housing and everything else we need to address.”
Could the acting city attorney take the position?
Kaufman said, “I asked her, and she’s retired actually, and she’s not interested. Cynthia Hall worked at the county attorney’s office for 18 years, and I really hope that our community can do something to show our gratitude for her service. Your listeners should know she did not charge the city $1 for her time, and the amount of time she put in every day this week, and the amount of pressure and the level of skill she showed was superb, and we really owe her a big debt of gratitude. She’s not even a resident of the city of Key West. I think she lives up the Keys, but she felt an obligation to serve, and there was a need, and by the way, she’s a board certified attorney in this area of municipal law, and she was just so wonderful. I can’t speak highly enough about her.”