Leadership Monroe County, the premier educational non-profit community leadership organization, announces its thirty-second year of programs with the selection of Class XXXII.

The LMC program is aimed at residents who are active in leadership roles within the private sector, government, or community organizations. Through a series of single or multi-day sessions over eight months, participants examine the fundamental public and private segments throughout the county. The program also provides participants the opportunity for mutual awareness and discussion of issues impacting the Keys. These unique experiences help participants grow as Monroe County residents and leaders as well as provide invaluable connections among other leaders across the county.

Sessions will begin September 13 in Key West with subsequent monthly classes throughout the Keys, culminating with graduation in May, 2025. Sessions are led by experts and leaders in the respective fields covered in each session. The nine sessions include focusing on the challenges and opportunities that confront the dynamic tourism industry and the Keys economy, vital environmental issues from the Everglades to Florida Bay and the coral reefs, the Monroe County education system, the multi-levels of government, the judiciary and law enforcement system, the historical and present military significance in the Keys, emergency management and emerging best practices, an examination of the Keys health care and human services, the increasing impact of the arts and creative industries, the non-profit sectors, and the rapidly changing media platforms that inform the citizenry and affect and influence public policy.
​
Established in 1992 to address the rapidly changing needs and concerns of the county, develop a group of well-educated leaders, help guide the community in a positive direction, and foster county-wide effective and non-partisan alliances, Leadership Monroe County is an independent non-profit, governed by a county-wide alumni member Board of Directors.  Present Officers are President George Garrett, Vice-President Cheryl Sullivan, Secretary Kathy McKinney and Treasurer Bruce Halle, with Program Coordinator Michael Shields. 

​MARATHON, FL— Monroe County cordially invites you to the grand opening and ribbon cutting of the new Monroe County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on Monday, Sept. 23 from 10 a.m. to noon at the west end of the Marathon airport. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held outside of the EOC, and following the ceremony, guests will be invited to tour certain areas of the facility.
 
This is an invite-only event, and RSVP is required. Please RSVP here if you plan to attend: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EOCRSVP. 
 
The facility will house:

• Monroe County Emergency Management
• Monroe County Sheriff’s Office 9-1-1 Communications
• Monroe County Fire Rescue Administration

  
“This is a major safety enhancement for our community that has been a long time in the making that will allow for continuity of services before, during, and after a disaster,” said Monroe County Mayor Holly Merrill Raschein. “There was a great deal of thought put into this project, and I would like to express a special appreciation to the staff and all of those involved.” 
 
Facility Stats:

• Size: 28,321 square feet
• Design: Based on a 500-year storm
• Can withstand 220 mph winds
• Impact Rating: Windborne Debris Missile Criteria for Hurricane Shelter Safe Room
• First Floor Flood Elevation = 20.2 ft. (17 ft. above ground)
• Self-sustaining for 96 hours for up to 150 people, including food, drinking water, redundant generators for electric power, and wastewater storage
• Emergency communications via redundant fiber optic network services, plus satellite phone/internet service

​GRASSY KEY, FL – Monroe County Fire Rescue welcomes its seventh “Hot Shots” class to Joe London Fire Academy on Grassy Key. Class 24-01 includes 26 qualified trainees starting the process to become a career or volunteer firefighter. Of the 26 students, 21 are residents of Monroe County. The Monroe County Board of County Commissioners continues to support the program that waives the tuition fee for qualified Monroe County residents in exchange for a commitment to volunteer or work as a career firefighter anywhere in the Florida Keys for three years.
 
“The ‘Hot Shots’ program provides those within our community looking for a career in fire rescue the ability to complete the program without any debt,” said Deputy Fire Chief RL Colina. “By bringing in homegrown candidates with local family and friend support, we hope to keep the talent we train at the academy serving our Florida Keys communities for years to come.”
 
Students who complete the 17 performance objectives of the firefighter program are prepared to take the State of Florida Firefighter II examination.
 
The program finishes on Dec. 13. Classes are held usually once a year. There are no new classes scheduled at this time. More information about the program can be found at www.monroecounty-fl.gov/hotshots or by emailing [email protected]. 

​MONROE COUNTY, FL--The grand jury’s report was recently made public. The report makes a number of recommendations for Monroe County Fire Rescue (MCFR) and Monroe County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC). The report lists 14 recommendations stemming from a 2022 incident involving former Trauma Star Chief Flight Nurse Lynda Rusinowski and missing drugs.
 
County staff is reviewing all of the recommendations and will discuss them with the Board at its Sept. 11 meeting, starting at 9 a.m. in the Murray Nelson Government Center in Key Largo. That meeting will be viewable online and on MCTV.
 
“We are thoroughly reviewing how our culture operates,” said Acting County Administrator Kevin Wilson. “We want to make sure we do not repeat any of the past mistakes and ensure that our controls are robust enough not to be circumvented moving forward.”
 
Immediately following the incident, Monroe County took action to improve the drug accounting inventory system and ensure proper controls are in place so similar incidents do not happen again. The additional controls included implementing a computer-based inventory system, installing security cameras and new medical supply safes with biometric locks, and adding additional personnel for quality assurance and oversight.
 
“The number one priority now is to regain the trust of our community,” said Monroe County Mayor Holly Merrill Raschein. “We will continue to be accountable and transparent while implementing the appropriate recommendations in the Grand Jury’s report and will have staff present regular updates at BOCC meetings into the foreseeable future.”

The City of Key West seeks proposals for the new Douglass Community Center that will celebrate the vibrant and distinguished history of the Bahamian culture and generations of families who have worked and lived in the Bahama Village neighborhood. The new Center will be home to a spacious main hall, classrooms, recording studio and practice rooms for music students of the Bahama Village Music Program and more. The site of the new building, along with a garden and performance space sits on the land of the original 1870 school house named for the great African-American orator and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.

The mission for the commissioned public art in the City of Key West is to enhance the character and identity of our island community through the aesthetic of original, site-specific public artworks. Artwork will strive to educate, celebrate and preserve our cultural heritage and diversity to reflect Key West's population.
 The total budget for this project is $75,000. 

All questions must be submitted in writing no later than September 10, 2024. Please contact: Elizabeth Young, Executive Director & Public Art Administrator, Florida Keys Council of the Arts: [email protected] No phone calls, please, as verbal communication regarding this art project is not allowed per the City of Key West ordinance. Please note that all proposals must be submitted on time and through the portal as instructed.
​
While it is not mandatory, Artists are invited to a site visit with City of Key West staff on SEPTEMBER 9, 2024@ 4pm EST. Hard hat and closed toe shoes are required. RSVP to: director@ keysarts.com by 9/7/2024.

For more information, and to apply, please visit the City of Key West on DemandStar, link located here: https://www.demandstar.com/app/limited/bids/472326/details

MIAMI, Fla. – The National Park Service (NPS) and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida today entered into two historic co-stewardship agreements for Everglades and Biscayne national parks. A formal signing ceremony was held at the Miccosukee Reserved Area within Everglades National Park. The Tribe and the national parks will implement the agreements through joint and cooperative endeavors focused on the natural and cultural resources of mutual interest.

“The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida has long been a steward of the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, pre-dating the establishment of the National Park Service,” said Chairman Talbert Cypress of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. “Since the battles in Biscayne Bay during the Seminole Wars and the subsequent creation of Everglades National Park and the eviction of the Tribal villages within it, the Tribe has worked with the Service to reestablish our role in the Everglades and the Bay. We are deeply appreciative of the National Park Service’s commitment to restoring Tribal co-stewardship of these lands.”

The agreement with Everglades National Park enables cooperative administration of wildland fire and prescribed burn operations, hydrology and water resources, and visitor services in the Shark Valley area. The Biscayne National Park agreement acknowledges Miccosukee citizens’ rights to traditional fishing and plant gathering within park borders. The agreement also establishes the intent to collaborate on fisheries management, vegetation restoration, resource protection and facilitation of traditional Tribal practices.

“This is an historic moment. While the parks have been consulting with the Miccosukee for many years, these co-stewardship agreements take our important relationship to the next level,” said Superintendent Pedro Ramos who oversees the NPS sites in South Florida. “These landscapes are home to the Miccosukee people, and continuing to provide Miccosukee citizens access to their traditional lands and cultural practices is simply the right thing to do. The infusion of traditional ecological knowledge will benefit our public lands and conservation efforts.”

The agreements will remain in effect for five years, with both parties agreeing to renew in good faith with similar terms every five years, for a total of twenty-five years, at which time the Tribe and NPS have agreed to revisit the terms of the agreements.

In 2022, the NPS issued guidance to improve federal stewardship of public lands, waters and wildlife by strengthening the role of Tribal governments in federal land management. This guidance followed from the Joint Secretarial Order 3403—signed by the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture during the 2021 White House Tribal Nations Summit—which outlined how the two Departments will strengthen Tribal co-stewardship efforts. The NPS’s co-stewardship policy provides a strong framework beyond traditional consultation to help park managers facilitate and support working relationships with Tribes. 
​
The term “co-stewardship” broadly refers to collaborative or cooperative arrangements between Department of Interior bureaus and offices and Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations related to shared interests in managing, conserving and preserving Federal lands and waters. The over-arching goal is to empower Indigenous communities while strengthening management of these unique places.

Some photographers document celebrities; some produce such a singular body of work that they achieve celebrity status themselves. Richard Watherwax is one of those.

Now, with his 90th birthday approaching, the long time Key West-based photographer with the inimitable style is to be honored with a retrospective of his works at the Key West Museum of Art and History, 281 Front Street. Titled “The Antic Humor of Richard Watherwax,” the exhibit kicks off with an opening reception from 5:00-7:00pm on Friday, Sept. 13, and continues through Nov. 24, 2024.

The tribute to the man and his creative life was conceived by Erika Biddle, a Key West resident known for throwing herself behind people and causes that she’s passionate about. After spending some time investigating how many of the photographer’s works could be tracked down and acquired on loan – and with a number of pieces materializing in surprising and serendipitous ways - she approached the Key West Art & Historical Society about the possibility of hosting a retrospective exhibit.

Biddle has spent the last several months assembling the works and working with KWAHS curator Cori Convertito to prepare the exhibition. “I visit Richard regularly at Palm Vista, where he now lives,” she said. “When I realized his 90th birthday was approaching it spurred me to launch this project. It’s important; he’s such a major part of our area history.”

Biddle said that the project will also include instituting a scholarship fund in Watherwax’s name to benefit young photography students ages 12-18.

Watherwax relates in a blog post (at watherwax.blogspot.com), that in high school he had two hobbies, magic and photography. Many would say that magic has infused his photography, shaping his whimsical perspective. The site also includes a photograph of him at work in a darkroom at Manhattan’s Copacabana nightclub in 1960. He relates stories of his “Beatnik Daze” in San Francisco and NYC, bartending and serving drinks to people like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and drinking with Shel Silverstein in Greenwich Village before reconnecting with him decades later in Key West.

During his New York years, Watherwax, who was a journalism/photography major in college, settled into commercial and advertising photography, shooting for clients like Coca-Cola, Revlon, and AT&T, and relates that in those years he actually lived the “Mad Men” lifestyle depicted in the smoke, sex, and martini-laced television series.
​
Taking his final bite out of the Big Apple in 1985, Watherwax relocated to Key West, where he quickly took to the island’s free-spirited, artistic, and intellectual vibe. Freed from the Manhattan ad agency lifestyle and its pressures, he cultivated a notably droll signature style. In the course of his Key West career, Watherwax photographed scores of “shakers, makers, and characters,” some depicted in character portraits, others, such as his “Saturday Night Baby Fights” classic, in over-the-top story-telling scenes or tableaux cooked up in his singularly quirky cinematographic imagination.

Previous to when digital cameras made professional caliber photography accessible to the wider public, Watherwax, with his unmistakable personal style stood out as a luminary among a very few top tier Key West-based photographers. As an in-demand wedding photographer, Watherwax quickly embraced digital technology and the sudden liberation of not having to count shots and replace rolls of film during a job. Having a personal photo session with Watherwax was a bucket list item for tourists and Keys residents. Clients understood that Watherwax could hone in on their unseen interior world, and capture that environment, and they would come away with something completely unexpected and original.

In addition to his photographic opus, Watherwax is the author of several books, among them, “Cat Tales” (1978), “The Cat Who Drank Too Much” (1979), and “Tales of Old Key West” (1989), a farcical history of the island. Cats and women stand out as Watherwax’s chosen creative muses, with his famous “Fat Cat Capsizing” reproduced as prints, and on T-shirts, tote bags, towels, and coffee mugs collected world-wide. A series of pet feline companions each in turn bore the name Willoughby, one of whom he entered in the 1989 mayoral race. While she didn’t win the office, Willoughby did garner an impressive 37 votes.

The public is invited to celebrate the man and his works at his exhibit opening/early birthday party on Sept. 13. “I can’t think of any way I’d rather celebrate my 90th birthday than surrounded by so many of the friends I’ve photographed over the years and who have made this such an interesting journey,” Watherwax commented.
“The Antic Humor of Richard Watherwax” is sponsored in part by Florida Keys Council of the Arts and Key West Art & Historical Society. For more information contact Erika Biddle at [email protected]

FLORIDA KEYS, FL--The Monroe County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) is committed to a robust public participation process regarding the state-mandated hurricane evacuation modeling discussions that will continue through January 2025.
 
Survey #4 is currently available, and is designed to gauge public opinions and ideas concerning some of the legal considerations of the future of growth in the Florida Keys. The survey will remain open until Friday, Sept. 13 at 5 p.m.
 
Monroe County community members are invited to take this short survey, which is the fourth of several. The survey can be found directly at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MCROGOSurvey4 and should take approximately five to six minutes to complete.
 
Additional surveys will be available in September and October to help gauge what the community wants to see moving forward, including the community's thoughts on planning for the future.
 
Past surveys will help officials learn more about community members' basic knowledge of ROGO/BPAS, how locals live and commute, and when residents evacuate during a hurricane. (Note: The first five questions of each survey are the same.)
 
Monroe County continues to give a monthly update during regularly scheduled BOCC meetings and is in the process of meeting with nonprofit and civic groups throughout the Florida Keys regarding the Dept. of Commerce's hurricane evacuation modeling to gauge public opinions on everything that affects evacuation timing and the number of additional ROGO/BPAS allocations, if any, the County and municipalities should request from the State. The hurricane evacuation modeling is based on a Florida Statute requiring that Monroe County residents be able to evacuate the Florida Keys within 24 hours before a storm. Any allocations awarded could be issued over the next 10 to 30 years or at a rate that does not lead to unbalanced growth or additional takings liability. To learn more about these terms, why they are important, to view the process, or to see upcoming meetings, visit www.monroecounty-fl.gov/rogo2024.

August 26, 2024 – (KEY WEST, FL).  The Key West Museum of Art & History will celebrate the opening of its newest temporary exhibition, “The Antic Humor of Richard Watherwax” on Friday, September 13.  The exhibition was first imagined by Erika Biddle, co-curator of the installation and a close friend of the photographer, motivated by his 90th birthday later this year.  A reception to mark the opening is scheduled to take place from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. that evening in the Bryan Gallery, which is free and open to the public.

Watherwax spent years in New York City, first as a journalism and photography major in college who then settled into commercial and advertising photography, living what he described a “Mad Men” lifestyle.  High profile clients included Coca-Cola, Revlon, and AT&T.  In 1985, Watherwax relocated to Key West where he quickly took to the island’s free-spirited, artistic, and intellectual vibe.  Freed from the Manhattan ad agency lifestyle and its pressures, he cultivated a notably droll signature style.

“During the course of his Key West career, Richard photographed scores of “shakers, makers, and characters,” some depicted in character portraits, others, such as his “Saturday Night Baby Fights” classic, in over-the-top story-telling scenes or tableaux cooked up in his singularly quirky cinematographic imagination,” says Biddle.  “In the years before digital cameras made professional caliber photography accessible to the wider public, with his unmistakable personal style, Watherwax stood out as a luminary among a very few top tier Key West-based photographers.”

Watherwax is perhaps known best for his triptych “Fat Cat Capsizing” which has been reproduced worldwide in the form of prints, t-shirts, tote bags, towels, and coffee mugs.  Among his other accomplishments are authoring several books including “Cat Tales” (1978), “The Cat Who Drank Too Much” (1979) and “Tales of Old Key West” (1989), a farcical history of the island.  In true Watherwax whimsy, he entered his cat Willoughby in the 1989 Key West mayoral race where she received an impressive 37 votes!

The retrospective will feature a mixture of Watherwax’s Key West works including his witty cat series, amusing postcards, portraits of the island’s unique characters, his profound artist series, and his posed works that will tickle visitors as they gain a deeper understanding of the photographer’s satire and farcicality.

“The Antic Humor of Richard Watherwax” runs through November 24, 2024, in the Bryan Gallery and is sponsored by the Florida Keys Council of the Arts.  For more information, visit kwahs.org/watherwax, call Cori Convertito at 305-295-6616 x 507 or [email protected].
​
Your Museums.  Your Community.  It takes an Island.