Jim Young Should Sue Julio Avael Into the Ground
by Dennis Reeves Cooper
The Jim Young case continues to develop. Unless you’ve been living on the moon, you probably know that Young is the former Code Enforcement officer who was abruptly fired by City Manager Julio Avael after Young dared to cite projects owned or managed by family members or friends of some of the City Commissioners.
Initially, Julio told a group of Code Enforcement employees that he had fired Young because “the Commission” told him to. But when City Commissioner Bill Verge reportedly asked him why he fired Young, he said he couldn’t talk about it because it was a personnel matter. Then he went on Bill Becker’s Morning Magazine Radio show last month and said one of the reasons he had fired Young was because he was “inebriated at midnight on Duval Street” interfering with a street artist. Of course, that was not one of the reasons Young was fired and Avael knew that when he blurted it out. We understand that Avael later apologized for making that remark.
If you read our Page One Commentary last week (The Snake In the Grass Strikes Again), you know that Julio sent an email to the Mayor and Commissioners earlier this month suggesting that Young may have embezzled money from the City and alleging that he tried to start a fight at City Hall. Both of those allegations are false and Avael knew that they were false when he sent that email. His on-air statement to Bill Becker and his slanderous email to the Mayor and Commissioners are just desperate attempts to try to discredit Young in order to, somehow, try to justify his gutless dismissal of Young in order to pander to a couple of City Commissioners.
Well, this time, Avael’s pathological lying may cost him and/or the City bigtime. Young’s attorney, Hugh Morgan, told the Key West Citizen this week that he may expand a wrongful termination lawsuit to include slander.
We hope that happens and that it happens soon. In essence, the Mayor and City Commissioners have already fired Julio by refusing to renew his multi-year contract. He has less than a year to go on his transitional contract. But he continues to run amok. He can’t be allowed to continue to go around spewing out blatant untruths about honest people.
If the Mayor and Commissioners won’t slap him down, maybe the courts will.
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