The recent Key West City Commission meeting started with a warning from a local resident that certain actions by city officials are being investigated and could lead to indictments.
Key West resident Robert Jensen spoke of the June 26 special meeting, where the commission voted 4-3 to fire then-city manager Al Childress following a series of text messages between city attorney Ron Ramsingh and individual commissioners.
Jensen also questioned the actions of Ron Ramsingh’s brother, Raj Ramsingh, who is the city’s chief building official, and whose performance evaluation and a formal reprimand by Childress have been linked to Childress’ firing.
Jensen has been working with the state attorney’s office following State Attorney Dennis Ward’s August subpoenas of cell phone and email records from city commissioners and several city officials.
“Are you aware that your chief building official has issued permits to his own business while working as CBO? He’s issued permits to himself. He has self-inspected. He’s made omissions on his applications,” Jensen said at the Oct. 10 commission meeting. “These are things that are not subjective. They’re in black and white and just need someone to look, which is what the city attorney advised, and what we’ve done. So you can expect there’s going to be further investigations.
“And I’ll remind you that public corruption investigations take time — the TDC, the fired county officials, the ongoing audits of various county departments and the supervisor of elections campaign. When that happens, I’d say it’s logical and reasonable to expect indictments,” Jensen told the commission, adding that they now have time to hire an outside attorney to look at the current matters as well as actions of past commissions, including the 2018 forgiveness of a lien on a property that was owned by now-commissioner Lissette Cuervo Carey. At the time, Carey was a city employee, not an elected official.
“Commissioner Carey in 2018 had a $271,000 lien completely forgiven, yet the very next lien that came before the commission for $19,000 required that property owner to pay $9,000,” Jensen said, questioning why Carey’s then-supervisor at the city was allowed to vote in favor of forgiving the lien.
Jensen’s three-minute time limit to speak then expired.
Commissioner Sam Kaufman was the only commissioner to respond, saying, “I’d like to give direction to the city manager to please identify an independent counsel to advise the commission on the investigations pertaining to these issues and please bring a resolution for us to consider at the next meeting.”
