The City of Sweetwater will have a Special Commission Meeting tonight at an unusual location, the Jorge Mas Canosa Youth Center located on 114th Avenue and SW 3rd Street.
Sweetwater, FL – Tonight’s Special Commission Meeting will include an interesting item in the agenda: the ratification of department heads. This agenda item has been postponed a number of times since the June 1, 2015 commission meeting, the first meeting after the mayoral election, in which the Mayor of Sweetwater must present one candidate for each of the following department head positions to be ratified before the commission: Police Chief, Maintenance Director, Parks and Recreation Director, Finance Director, and Building, Planning, Zoning and Roads Director.
Aside from Interim Police Chief Placido Diaz, Sweetwater Mayor Orlando Lopez has yet to present a department head to be ratified. Although Diaz was rejected as a department head by the commission in the last meeting, he is still allowed to perform the function of interim police chief until a police chief is submitted by Mayor Lopez and ratified by the commisison.
As of Wednesday afternoon, there have been no new department heads ratified by the commission. The new administration headed by Lopez has commented various times about the difficulty of getting qualified applicants for the department head positions. If no suitable candidate is found for a department head position, the Mayor can choose to leave current department heads at their positions.
Elevator Problems Lead to Closing of City Hall & Commission Chambers
On Monday at city hall, a notice was displayed in the front of the building with a statement declaring the building unsafe due to elevator problems, or “failure to provide vertical accessibility to upper floors.” The second and third floors of the city hall were closed until Wednesday, this included the Commission Chambers on the third floor.
According to a statement on the City of Sweetwater website, the elevator located within city hall experienced an “unforseen mechanical issue”, this prompted the special meeting originally scheduled for Monday nights at the usual commission chambers on the third floor, to be rescheduled for Wednesday night at the Jorge Mas Canosa Youth Center located at 250 SW 114th Ave, in Sweetwater, FL. No details were released explaining the cause of the mechanical failure.
Sweetwater Special Commission Meeting
Time: 8 PM
Where: Jorge Mas Canosa Youth Center
