Mongo bring unconventional background to city commission race
BY PRU SOWERS
KEY WEST STAFF WRITER
Mike Mongo, candidate for the District V Key West City Commission seat being vacated by Teri Johnston, has some interesting credentials.
He’s written “The Astronaut Instruction Manual,” a book on living in space for pre-teens. He is co-founder of Computers for Jamaica, helping rebuild over 600 computers and shipping them to Jamaica and Haiti for use by students and teachers.
A computer consultant and technologist, Mongo has been married to Lonnie Thompson-Mongo – “the woman of my dreams” – for three years but he is also president of the local gay & lesbian community center. And when Lee Jones and Aaron Huntsman got married on the Monroe County Courthouse steps Jan. 6, the first same sex marriage in the county, Mongo was there wearing a red, white and blue Uncle Sam top hat, handing out rainbow colored bracelets to celebrate. He seemed as giddy as the wedding party about the historic event.
“I’m a big supporter of equality, a huge proponent of civil rights” he said via telephone recently. “It’s in my DNA.”
So, apparently, is striking up conversations wherever he goes, building a large base of friends and acquaintances. Mongo says he is a kind of de-factor Mayor of Key West, particularly in District V, where he has lived since 2010. Indeed, two people interrupted while he was standing on the street talking on his cell phone to Konk Life. He had to duck out of sight alongside a building to continue uninterrupted.
Unconventionality aside, Mongo, who often wears glasses in upside-down frames to keep the attention of the students he mentors in the Monroe County Take Stock in Children program (“It’s to combat cell phones and video games,” he says about the glasses.), is completely serious about running for city commission. His outlook on life changed after his 2009 run for mayor, where in only six weeks of campaigning, he garnered 16 percent of the vote. Even after the loss to now-Mayor Craig Cates, Mongo said his perspective on living in Key West changed.
“ I don’t know that my dedication to service was there up until then,” he said about the 2009 race. “But people kept coming up to me afterward and saying, ‘can you help me here?’ I love to help people. If you can, you should.”
Mongo says that as a comic book-reading kid, he always wanted to be a super hero. However, as an adult, he has realized that simple acts like stopping to help someone fix a flat tire can have an enormous impact on that person.
“You don’t need to have super powers. You just need to practice doing good every day. Suddenly, you’re larger than life. It makes the world a better place instantly. One day at a time, one act at a time,” he said.
Mongo says his passion for working with seniors and young students in the community is what inspires him every day. He points to a student he began mentoring in the Take Stock college scholarship program who was in seventh grade when they first met. It wasn’t easy but the student not only graduated from high school, he also received a full scholarship at the University of Central Florida.
“Each of us has the opportunity to make Key West better today and tomorrow and far beyond that, as well. That’s why people call on me even now for everything from the Key West baseball fields—which are in terrible need of simple refurbishing—to our residents’ garbage pick-up. The reason I am running is so that I can bring my enthusiasm and experience in managing the processes to the advantage of the people who live here,” he said.
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I know Mike is not just talking about doing these things; he really does do them. When I got my new computer not long before I moved from the island, I called or emailed him to ask whether he’d want my old computer, and he came right over and even helped me get the hard drive out of it, and said he had a shipment going out to Haiti that afternoon, so he’d put a new hard drive in it and put it with the rest of the shipment. Mike, like another good citizen who ran not once but twice for city commission in another district, Tom Milone, has a genuine good heart, has consistently shown that he’s truly interested in what happens to the city of Key West and its citizens, all its citizens, not just those who are like him, and I believe you could not get a better person to fill Teri’s shoes when she leaves (hopefully to go to Tallahassee and knock some sense into that Congress)!
I just want to thank Konk Life for allowing me to have my say about things pertaining to the island of key West, even though I am no longer (officially, anyway) a Key Wester. Guy has never once refused to publish my comments and that means a lot to me, and it says a lot about him. Much appreciated!