EDITORIAL: Where is the next festering sore?

At 1300 White Street, the corruption oozes, the pus flows — and taxpayers are throwing hard-earned dollars at an ineffective cure — sans prophylactics.

The Gaping Wound that Refuses to Openly Drain

The corruption oozing from 1300 White Street — like a boil yearning to be lanced by former outsider City Manager Al Childress, who was publicly knifed and left for dead while trying — didn’t appear overnight.

It was born of a seething grand jury indictment that laid bare a culture of years of mismanagement, ethical lapses, and self-dealing, culminating in 21 felony charges against senior city officials — so far.

And that was just what the cleanse of the Corradino Report brought to the sunshine.

Those charges stem from a multi-year joint investigation, still ongoing, by the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office and the FBI — an unprecedented probe into the rot at the heart of Key West’s government.

The Coconut-Shell Chorus

For those still hiding their heads between clapping coconut shells, the pattern is as obvious as a Monty Python “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” routine — except the punchline isn’t funny.

At. All.

This skit ends not with laughter, but with crying that grows louder by the day. And those octaves? They carry dollar notes.

We are only now beginning to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth following the indictments of disgraced City Attorney Ron Ramsingh, his brother, former Chief Building Officer Raj Ramsingh, and their underling and bully enforcer, Code Enforcement Director Jim Young — the now-infamous Bubba Bozo Trio.

Et tu, Raj?

Pus, Pickup Trucks, and the Public Trust

The problems don’t end there.

They never do.

Now, charges of professional conduct and sexual discrimination and harassment are bubbling to the surface like festering, purulent carbuncles — and that greenish-yellowish sludge might just be the purest thing left inside 1300 White Street.

At least it throws infection out.

Perhaps City Manager Brian Barroso should start wearing a mask and eye protection.

But it seems like maybe he might be current on his vaccinations.

Public trust isn’t just eroding.

Coral rock is being cleaved at the base, and the water is rising like a king tide on Front Street, as taxpayers try to keep up with the drainage.

And while the familiar refrain of “nothing to see here” echoes through City Hall, too many in power seem content to plow through the freshwater in their giant white pickup trucks, pretending everything’s fine.

It’s the same old Conch refrain — thick shells, thin blue eyes, and an almost proud resistance to fact itself — but the water flooding the street is every bit as corrosive to a truck’s undercarriage as it is to the public trust.

Now that we know what you are, we are just negotiating price

In the middle of this mess, the City Commission wants to spend more money — voting on a contract to hire Orlando attorney Mayanne Downs and her firm, DownsAaron, PLLC, at $495 per hour.

And while taxpayers prepare to bankroll that rate, they’re still paying a neophyte city attorney that some on the dais hope will “grow into her job.”

Last time I checked, OJT wasn’t a benefit offered by the City of Key West.

Commissioner Sam Kaufman, to his credit, says he’ll vote no on hiring outside counsel — and for good reason.

In a letter to constituents, colleagues and members of the press, Kaufman wrote that while he holds Downs in high professional regard, the proposal “is not the best fit for the City of Key West at this time.”

He noted that the hourly rate is more than double the $230 previously offered by Vernis & Bowling, a well-qualified firm with attorneys based right here in the Keys and long experience representing local governments across Monroe County.

From left, Key West City quasi-official attorney Kendal Harden, and Vernis & Bowling lead counsel, Dirk Smits.

The Firm That Knows the Territory

Vernis & Bowling — second only to GrayRobinson in statewide municipal representation and heft — knows the territory, literally and politically.

Its lawyers are steeped in the complexities facing an Area of Critical State Concern, fluent in the tangle of state and local regulations that define life in the Keys, and already work with the agencies that shape the city’s daily business.

The firm’s lead attorney, Dirk Smits, is widely regarded as one of the most respected municipal litigators in the Southeast — a straight-shooting practitioner whose reputation for fairness and professionalism has earned the respect of judges, city managers, and elected officials from Miami to Mobile.

By contrast, DownsAaron, an Orlando-based firm with a satellite office in Tallahassee, is led by Mayanne Downs, a former Florida Bar president and current City Attorney for Orlando, whose firm also represents the Orlando Aviation Authority.

In short: Downs and her team are already plenty busy representing two of Central Florida’s largest public institutions.

Her credentials are beyond compare — but the fit for Key West is not.

Hiring a $495-an-hour Orlando lawyer while the city is drowning in scandal — and increasing taxes on already beleaguered property owners — looks less like prudent governance and more like an expensive bid for borrowed legitimacy.

The grunt rots from the head

Because this isn’t just about cost — it’s about credibility.

The grand jury that rattled 1300 White Street described a government rotting from the head down — a place where oversight was ignored, accountability vanished, and insiders protected insiders.

Double dealing at the highest levels with the least respect for outsiders.

Since then, the city has lurched from one scandal to the next: ethics complaints, whistleblower retaliation, discrimination claims — all signs of a leadership class more focused on self-preservation than public service.

Lessons Unlearned

The majority of the current commission and the city manager seem content to wax loquacious that Kendal Harden — a neophyte attorney and recent law-school graduate still learning on the job — will eventually grow into the role of city attorney.

Yeah. Not so much.

An ill-advised sponsorship for a resolution to reimburse Commissioner Lissette Carey for personal legal fees — before Carey’s own ethics matters have been resolved — was, at best, plebeian.

At worst, it was a tone-deaf Gong-Show clang signaling that the lessons of the grand jury have already been forgotten — or completely disregarded — and ignored.

The brothers Barroso: From left, City Manager Brian, Gregory (Emergency Resopnse) and Jason, (Key West Fire Marshall.)

Throwing Money at the Infection

Against that backdrop, approving a nearly half-thousand-dollar-an-hour contract doesn’t restore confidence — it erodes it further.

It reinforces the perception that 1300 White Street’s solution to every self-inflicted wound is to throw taxpayer money at the problem and hope no one notices.

Fiscal restraint shouldn’t be the exception.

It should be the standard.

Yet, in the City of Key West, it is treated like an inconvenience.

In summa, ex cathedra

If the majority on the dais approves this contract, it will confirm what too many taxpayers already suspect: that this commission — like the ones before it — still hasn’t learned that reputation is earned, not outsourced.

At a time when Key West’s credibility is on trial, a “no” vote isn’t just about dollars — it’s about integrity.

And in this season of scandal, one truth stands out: Commissioner Sam Kaufman’s dogged commitment to fiscal conservancy — the kind most of his colleagues have long since eschewed — remains the only thing standing between taxpayers and another round of civic embarrassment — and culturally-transmitted diseases — at 1300 White Street.

Because no matter how many lawyers the city hires, no one can defend the indefensible: a government that keeps mistaking access for accountability and arrogance for leadership.

The Key West City Commission meets on Thursday, Oct. 9 in two sessions; the first begins at 9 a.m., the second at 5 p.m. That is by design… not by mistake.