Key West opens registration for Ambassadors Academy class 45

Key West is opening the next round of its Ambassadors Academy, a 13-week civic course aimed at showing residents how City Hall works and where city decisions are made. Registration opens June 10 for Class 45, which begins July 14 and runs through September 29 with Tuesday sessions from 1 to 3 p.m., usually at City Hall, 1300 White Street.

The city has framed the academy as a practical way to decode local government for people who want more than a passing familiarity with budgets, permits, neighborhood complaints and public meetings. City officials say the program is meant to answer questions residents already ask about where tax dollars go, how wastewater and stormwater are handled, and what school resource officers do.

First convened in 2003, the Ambassadors Academy has grown into one of Key West’s most established public-information efforts. The city says the course includes field trips and direct sessions with representatives from multiple departments, giving participants a closer look at how a small municipality coordinates daily services and how residents can influence those systems.

That access has helped the academy develop a civic pipeline as well as a classroom. City materials say alumni include Commissioners Clayton Lopez, Sam Kauffman and Lissette Cuervo Carey, all of whom moved into elected office after finishing the program. Earlier city posts also tied Class 36 graduates to Lopez and Vice-Mayor Sam Kauffman, underscoring the academy’s role in building familiarity with the machinery of local government before a candidate ever appears on a ballot.

The program began with support from the city manager and later added volunteer ambassadors who help coordinate it, a structure that has kept it going for more than two decades. By October 2023, the city said Class 39 had pushed the total number of graduates beyond 600 citizens. After Class 44 graduated in April, that figure rose to more than 700.

For Monroe County residents watching how Key West handles infrastructure, public safety and city finance, the academy offers a direct route into the process. It is built for people who want to move from reacting to city government to understanding who makes decisions, how those decisions move through departments, and how residents can be heard before the vote is taken.