Effort fails to put limits on naming Key West facilities

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Following up on the awkward defeat of a resolution to name the city commission chambers after Key West Mayor Craig Cates – who had recused himself and was sitting in the audience with supporters during the debate – an attempt to put restrictions on naming municipal facilities failed at a recent commission meeting.

Commissioner Billy Wardlow, who voted against naming the chamber after Cates, had sponsored the new resolution, which would have allowed city facilities to be named after a person only after five years or more had passed since the person either retired or left the city’s employ or service as an official. City-owned buildings, parks and other property shouldn’t be named after individuals while the person “is still sitting up here,” Wardlow said, referring to the effort by Commissioner Clayton Lopez to honor Cates by naming the commission meeting room after him while he was still in office.

“I’d like a cooling off period,” Wardlow said, adding, “It [resolution] is just something that I thought would be there so we’d have something in writing and it would be on the books.”

But the other commissioners were uncomfortable tying the hands of future commissioners. Commissioner Sam Kaufman pointed to the recently-approved namings of the White Street Pier after local resident Edward Knight, and part of the plaza located within the Clayton Sterling Complex sports fields on Kennedy Drive as the “Richie Garcia Baseball Plaza.” Garcia is a graduate of Key West High School who umpired for several local baseball teams before becoming a professional umpire with Major League Baseball.

“I agree with you we shouldn’t do it [facility naming] on a regular basis. But from time to time, it is appropriate,” Kaufman told Wardlow before voting against the resolution, which failed by a 5-1 vote.

Commissioner Greg Davila was also reluctant to impose naming limits. He said he considers his newly-elected spot on the city commission temporary and that naming suggestions should be on a case by case basis.

“I just don’t want to bind anyone else who may be sitting here,” he said.

Lopez, who was visibly upset after his resolution naming the meeting room after Cates failed by a 3-3 vote, was emotional again as he explained why he wouldn’t support the five-year restriction. You don’t know if a person deserving of honor will be around for five years after their service, he said, adding, “give him his flowers while he lived.”

“You can’t say thanks to someone who is laying in a coffin,” Lopez said.

Cates, the source of the debate, said Wardlow’s resolution had nothing to do with him “because I didn’t do this job to have anything named after me.” Cates is stepping down in November after 10 years as mayor because of term limits. He said he thinks five years is an arbitrary number that will only constrain future commissioners.

“It’s been working well for 200 years,” he said about Key West’s long tradition of naming streets, buildings and parks after local personages.

Former Commissioner Margaret Romero, who voted against the Cates naming resolution as one of her last actions before leaving her commission seat in August to run for mayor, spoke against the resolution but not because it would curb future commissioners. She left no doubt where she stood on all city facility naming proposals past and future.

“I don’t think we have to name any building, any chamber, any room, any anything for anybody who has been in the employ of the city or county or, for that matter, anybody at all who has been an elected official,” she said during the public comments portion of the debate.

Romero and former Key West City Commissioner Teri Johnston are running to be the next mayor. The general election is Nov. 6.

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