Key West Names New City Planner Amid Questions Over Credentials, Ongoing Corruption Fallout
City Hall’s new hire, Taylor T. Brown, touts a master’s degree he may not have earned — as Key West’s government faces ongoing fallout from a grand jury’s scathing report on mismanagement.
The City of Key West has appointed veteran Florida planner and municipal administrator Taylor T. Brown as its new City Planner, officials announced Wednesday.
According to an email from Growth Management Division Director Patrick Wright to the mayor, commissioners, and senior city staff, Brown was selected following what Wright described as a competitive process. Wright praised Brown’s “extensive background in municipal leadership, planning policy, and community development,” saying it “will be invaluable as we continue to guide the city’s growth and planning efforts.”
Brown brings more than two decades of experience in public-sector management and community planning, most recently serving as executive director of the Taylor County Development Authority, where he led economic-growth and strategic development initiatives. He previously held top municipal roles across Florida, including city manager positions in Perry, Mary Esther, and Trenton, as well as planning director and zoning administrator for Gilchrist County.
According to Wright’s email, Brown holds a master’s degree in community planning from the University of Maryland and a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University.
The problem, however, is that resumés Brown submitted for two other municipal positions elsewhere in Florida within the past year show he only completed one year of the University of Maryland’s two-year community planning program, raising questions about the accuracy of his academic credentials.
Not an omission, but something Wright either misread — or intentionally misled — city management and commissioners on.
The grand jury was highly critical of commissioners making decisions and voting on issues that they hadn’t read the back up on.
The apple, apparently, doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Brown’s appointment follows the tenure of former City Planner Katie Halloran, who held a Master of Science in Urban Planning from the University of Texas at Austin — a credential widely regarded as among the nation’s top professional planning degrees.
Halloran resigned earlier this year, citing a hostile work environment allegedly fostered by former top city staff implicated in the “Bubba Bozo Trio” corruption investigation, along with current embattled City Manager Brian Barroso.
That ongoing investigation stemmed from a scathing Monroe County Grand Jury report released earlier this year, which found “a pervasive pattern of mismanagement, favoritism, and retaliation” within the City’s Planning, Code, and Building Departments. The panel described “a toxic work environment in which professional staff were pressured to alter or suppress findings to suit political or personal agendas” and concluded that “reform of Key West’s internal controls and personnel oversight is essential to restoring public trust.”
The grand jury also warned that the city’s failure to address its internal dysfunction “poses ongoing risk to the integrity of permitting, enforcement, and land-use decision-making processes.”
Brown is scheduled to begin work at City Hall on Dec. 1, 2025.