Thursday night the Key West City Commission upended the career of City Attorney Ron Ramsingh. In a 4-3 vote, commissioners terminated Ramsingh’s contract “without cause,” a legal definition that cuts him loose without having to say explicitly why. Just gone. With upwards of a quarter-million-dollar payout and the possibility he could sue the city for wrongful termination.

Earlier in the week in a last-ditch effort to salvage his dignity and his personal finances, Ramsingh offered to resign voluntarily and promise not to sue the city — if the city agreed to pay for his legal defense costs as he fights grand jury indictments for multiple criminal violations for obstructing an ongoing investigation. City Commissioners balked and that offer never officially made it to the dais for consideration.

It’s an ignominious end to the 51-year-old Ramsingh’s 15-year career with the city and an unfathomable blow to his personal and family life. It’s a tale, perhaps, of getting too big for one’s britches, as my dad would say. Of putting aside the sacrifices required when one holds the very fragile public trust in favor of protecting a brother and lifelong friends. Of thinking one’s digital life can be erased with a handful of keystrokes. Of believing he could orchestrate a coup in City Hall and face few, if any, repercussions.

And it’s a sad tale of an island without a rudder. Thursday night only Mayor Danise “Dee Dee” Henriquez and Commissioner Sam Kaufman voted to terminate Ramsingh’s contract “for cause,” which would have listed the ways in which he violated the commission’s — and the public’s — trust. The rest appeared to prefer that bad things just go away (with a bigger payout) rather than being forced to take a principled stand.

Let’s do a recap for those who’ve not followed along.

On June 26, 2024, the commission voted 4-3 to fire then-City Manager Al Childress. It was clear by the end of the tumultuous three-hour meeting, which included a 30-minute soliloquy by Ramsingh, that the city attorney was the linchpin of the “dump Al” cabal that included Commissioner Lissette Carey and outgoing Commissioners Clayton Lopez, Billy Wardlow and Jimmy Weekley.

Central to the City Hall coup was the Corradino Report, a 55-page analysis of the conflicts between the city’s Building Department and its Planning Department. The report, commissioned by Childress, was particularly critical of how the Building Department (under Raj Ramsingh, Ron’s brother) skirted the city’s land use regulations and ignored the Planning Department. Consideration of the report was pulled from the commission agenda early in 2024 after what appears to have been some text wheeling and dealing between the city attorney and the commissioners who eventually voted in favor of firing Childress.

At the time I wrote: “Ramsingh got want he wanted. He may well come to regret his role in cobbling together this Bubba Uprising at City Hall.”

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Key West City Attorney | Cronyism, distrust and calamity

That might have been the end of it except that State Attorney Dennis Ward was listening intently on the front row during that June 2024 meeting. Ten months later, on April 15 and again on April 23, and with an assist from FBI investigators, a Monroe County grand jury returned indictments on felony charges against Ramsingh, his brother Raj at the Building Department and Code Enforcement Director Jim Young for obstructing an ongoing investigation into Childress’ firing.

It appears the three got busy deleting or altering text messages that might indicate they’d had a direct hand in Childress’ overthrow. Between Aug. 23 and Sept. 16, 2024, say the indictments, the two Ramsingh brothers and Young “did alter, destroy, conceal or remove text messages” that they had sent among themselves in June 2024 “knowing that an investigation was pending or about to be instituted.”

On April 23, additional felony indictments resulted in the second arrests of Ron Ramsingh for official misconduct for “interfering with the reporting of a felony committed by his brother” and Raj Ramsingh for seven counts of official misconduct for allegedly falsifying building permits.

City Manager Brian Barroso placed Raj Ramsingh and Young on paid administrative leave with further action expected after they are arraigned. (Young retired on Friday.) Under the City Charter Ron Ramsingh worked directly for the City Commission, which is why it had to decide at the two special meetings how to handle his contract.

The first meeting on Monday was a three-hour spectacle that clearly divided the audience and the commission into those who like Ron and have benefited from their personal and professional associations with him and the angry ones outraged by the internecine breaches of public trust by a city attorney. The second, on Thursday, ended Ramsingh’s city contract.

The deleted texts are filled with casual obscenities, racially tinged and misogynistic asides, sophomoric braggadocio and gung-ho, boys-will-be-boys bravado. The Corradino Report makes it clear that development approval in Key West is far more about who one knows than the project at hand.

The commissioners’ body language and facial expressions at both meetings were so sadly telling. Most are in way over their heads. City commissioners (with the exceptions of lawyer Kaufman and Mayor Henriquez) are struggling to understand the legal complexities of how government works, the fine-line distinctions between “with cause” and “without cause” and whether they’re going to get sued. Few found the energy to be appalled at felony charges that indicate a pattern of public trust violations.

I suspect they’re wondering how they’re going to survive this cluster — especially since most of them have a hand touching some part of the mess. Not all the connections would be illegal or even a conflict of interest. They are personal. In a small town where the degrees of separation are slim, it’s tough to rise above decades of shared sporting events, sandbar visits and family picnics.

So here we are. A sad little tale on an island without a rudder in a chaotic sea of cronyism, distrust and potential financial calamity.

There’s a solution. Resurrect the Corradino Report. Follow its recommendations. Clean up that mess. Now.

Learn more

EDITOR’S NOTE: I am grateful to reporters Mandy Miles of the Keys Weekly, Katrina Nichols of the Keys Citizen and Ted Lund on Substack for their diligent work in reporting the breaking news this week. Without their on-the-street reporting much of what we know would remain elusive. While I do my own original reporting and my perspectives and observations are mine alone, without their work my columns would be far less comprehensive. I ask that you support them. I am also grateful for Florida’s Sunshine Law, which even while under attack by those who want public business hidden from us, still ensures that private citizens, like you and me, can watch public meetings live online and access the public records and documents that are at the heart of this investigation.

Below you’ll find the stories and original documentation that help shape our understanding of this sad tale.

Read the Corradino Report

Watch the Thursday, April 24, 2025 City Commission meeting

Watch the Monday, April 21, 2025 City Commission meeting

June 2024 columns by Linda Grist Cunningham on the firing of former City Manager Al Childress:

• The Bubba Uprising | Tired of being disrespected
• The Bubba Coup | This ain’t even close to being over

News coverage from Katrina Nichols and the Keys Citizen:

• Thursday meeting
• More felony charges
• Grand jury charges

News coverage from the Keys Weekly and Mandy Miles:

• Commission fires Al Childress
• Three Key West officials indicted and arrested on felony charges
• Court documents detail felony indictment charges
• More charges filed

News coverage from Ted Lund on Substack

• Building permits linked to Commissioner Carey
• City Attorney throws himself on Commission mercy (the letter)
• Ron Ramsingh promotes false ethics results against Commissioner Kaufman
• Building Code Enforcement Officer Jim Young retires following felony charges

Read the documentation, text messages and discovery on which the felony indictments were founded: