Key West’s city government drama continued on the morning of Aug. 21, when State Attorney Dennis Ward’s office subpoenaed cell phone and email records for all six city commissioners and the mayor, as well as for city attorney Ron Ramsingh and his brother, Raj Ramsingh, who is the city’s chief building official.
The subpoenas came just five days before a special city commission meeting that will decide whether to rehire fired city manager Al Childress, who was ousted in late June by four commissioners, three of whom are leaving office in the coming weeks.
The two commissioners who voted with Mayor Teri Johnston to support Childress on June 26 — Sam Kaufman and Mary Lou Hoover — scheduled a special meeting to rehire him on Aug. 26, which will convene just hours after two new commissioners and a new mayor are sworn in the same day.
Monica Haskell will replace Jimmy Weekley; Donie Lee replaces Billy Wardlow and Dee Dee Henriquez replaces Johnston as mayor.
Commissioner Clayton Lopez will remain on the dais until a November runoff determines whether he will be succeeded by Aaron Castillo or Marci Rose.
At the June 26 meeting that saw the firing of Childress, several members of the public accused Weekley and Carey of conspiring wrongfully via text messages with city attorney Ron Ramsingh to oust Childress on June 21, the same day Childress formally reprimanded the city’s chief building official, Raj Ramsingh, who is the city attorney’s brother.
Ward was at the June 26 meeting at city hall, perhaps due to questions of whether those text messages could have violated the state’s Sunshine Laws, which prohibit private communication between public officials about matters that will come to a vote. No text messages were sent directly between Weekley and Carey. Rather, the city attorney had separate text conversations with each of them. But Johnston pointed out in June that Ron Ramsingh did not send the same messages to all seven lawmakers, and in singling out a few, in effect acted as a go-between to facilitate plans to fire Childress.
Ward’s office recently empaneled a grand jury that handed down four indictments of county officials for official misconduct, tampering with evidence and other charges.
The state attorney also could be seeking information about whether building official Raj Ramsingh acted improperly by approving construction projects without first sending them through the city’s planning department for review. Raj Ramsingh’s actions in the building department were questioned in a recent review by planning consultants from the Corradino Group amid significant friction between two departments’ directors.
But commissioner Sam Kaufman cautioned speculation about the aim of the Aug. 21 subpoenas.
“From my perspective, we should not assume anything from the issuance of subpoenas by the office of the state attorney other than that an investigation is underway,” Kaufman said. “That being said, this is a very serious matter and we should allow for due process to take place. I expect that all current and former city officials will cooperate with this investigation. I look forward to learning the results of the state attorney’s investigation, which I hope is soon so the city can move forward.”
Ron Ramsingh told the Keys Weekly on Aug. 21, “City clerk Keri O’Brien received a subpoena for email and cell phone records for the entire city commission, myself and the (chief building official). I have not been served with any subpoena and I am not aware of anyone else being served thus far. We will all of course comply with any and all lawful requests, although many of these items were already produced via public records requests.”
