Laguna Beach lost a true treasure and humanitarian on May 23rd, 2021 when Genevieve Lucille McMenomy passed away at home at the age of 90. She was just one month and two days shy of her 91st birthday.
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The 16th Judicial Circuit court system in Monroe County court has its first in-person criminal trial scheduled to begin next month, after a year of disruption because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the past year, a large amount of proceedings relegated to Zoom and other video-conferencing platforms.
The scheduled trial is a sign of an eventual return to full normalcy for the courts, but when exactly that will happen is still unknown, said Mark Jones, chief judge of the 16th Judicial Circuit. Jones will be presiding over the felony trial next month. He said one trial was already on the schedule for April, but it ended in a plea agreement.
In a turnaround, members of the Key West Housing Authority have voted 4-0 this month to change the name of the J.Y. Porter Place Apartments after concerns were raised that the man the housing complex is named after was a leader in the 1921 local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
Housing Authority board members voted to change the name to honor Lang B. Milian, the first Black man to serve on the housing authority board and who elected to the Key West City Commission in 1971. Now deceased, Milian was only the second Black man to serve on the Key West City Commission in the 20th Century at that time. He is also the father of current Housing Authority board member Annette Mobley.
Key West Mayor Teri Johnston will propose increasing the size of the cityâs housing authority board from five to seven commissioners within the next month, a move the current authority chairman wants to stop.
The expansion of the Housing Authority of Key West board, the first in its 83-year history, is aimed at bringing a more specialized knowledge onto the authority board. It is also an effort to increase transparency on a board where three of its five members have been in place for decades. Commissioner Roosevelt Sands Jr. has been on the board the longest, appointed in 1970 and serving 56 years. Chairman Frank Toppino has been on the board for 30 years, appointed in 1991. Vice Chairman Robert Dean has served twice for a total of 44 years. And commissioners John Parks and Annette Mobley were appointed in 2003 and 2018, respectively.