A number of different events are coming up for the city of Marathon

Marathon Mayor Robyn Still joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the city.

Marathon will celebrate Key Colony Beach Days this weekend.

Still said, “It’s going to be a great event. I try to attend to every year. It’s great music, great vendors, I just highly recommend people go out and support the vendors and the artists there. Then we have the Marathon Seafood Festival which is going to affect our Marathon traffic probably a little bit more than Key Colony Beach. That’s right in the community park and that’s next Saturday and Sunday. And that’s always a huge event. Thankfully, the sheriff’s office is out there directing traffic to help pedestrians crossing the road and help traffic going up and down the road. Parking is always a challenge. I always suggest that if you’re going to go, go early. That way you can hopefully get a closer parking place and not have to walk so far. But it’s there’s parking. You just have to find it. Yeah, but that’s also another wonderful, wonderful event.”

The Seafood Festival will have over 200 vendors.

Still said, “I’ll actually have a personal booth there. Mine will be right next to the city’s booth. I’m happy about that. The Chamber of Commerce has been very gracious the last couple of years to let my booth be next to the city’s booth. That way I kind of feel like I’m volunteering with the city all day long, too. If there’s questions I am right there and easy to find. I know that there’s several vendors that I look forward to seeing every single year at the Seafood Festival and I’m hoping they’re going to be there this year. It’s a great event. I encourage everybody to come out. I hope our weather’s going to be nice.”

The Marathon City Council recently increased potential funding of local nonprofits up to $150,000 for the fiscal year 2024.

Still said, “I was so proud to be able to champion that last year, we gave out almost $100,000. It was the first year we’d brought it back since well before Hurricane Irma and at first it faced a little opposition but then my fellow council members agreed that we needed to do this for our community nonprofits this year. I just want to make sure I know that Vice Mayor Lynn Landry suggested and made a motion that we increase those funds to up to $150,000. I think that is so amazing, that we are going to be able to give out that kind of money. This money is targeted for the nonprofits who are providing services in the city of Marathon. So these funds are going to city of Marathon families in need, nonprofits who are providing services to individuals who are here in our community. It’s wonderful to donate to other organizations. But sometimes you don’t know where that money goes, you don’t know that it stays in your community. But as part of this grant program, those funds stay local to our local residents. So I’m looking forward to seeing how many nonprofits apply. I’ve gotten some phone calls from a few and looking for the application on the city website. Those need to be turned in. We all as council members look at the applications independently and we score and rate them independently, we turn that back in. I don’t know what the other council members score certain nonprofits based on the applications. It’s truly a blind judging, and then it’s announced who receive funds and for how much.”

The homeless population on 20th Street continues to be a bit of a challenge.

Still said, “George Garrett, our city manager and I were able to go down 20th Street a few weeks ago with the sheriff’s office and take a look at what was going on down on 20th Street, how structures had been erected there. That was in an effort to kind of plan a strategy of a cleanup of 20th Street. Based on that, and some other issues, there’s going to be a cleanup tomorrow, actually, March 1, on 20th Street. There’s some structures that have been built. I’m telling you the ingenuity of some people, I wouldn’t have been able to build some of the things that they built. But as a life safety issue, if there was a fire, if  something were to happen, those structures are not safe, because they’re not built to code. So those structures are going to be torn down. There’s some other things that are going to be addressed that are some unsanitary conditions out there, that need to be addressed as well by one of our state partners. But I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes. I think that we made contact with at least one of the residents of 20th Street and went ahead and prepared him to tell him that this is going to happen. So start gathering your stuff that you want to keep and the structures will be torn down. So kind of make some other plans. You can stay on 20th Street, but you just can’t have the built shelter. You can have a soft sided tent. So we’ll be out there tomorrow, trying to clean that up and working alongside the folks who unfortunately have nowhere else to go.”

A workshop for the hotel/motel ordinance happened Tuesday night. 

Still said, “That’s been something this council has been talking about since August, and there have been recommended changes in it by different council members. That’s kind of culminated in some change in language that we saw Tuesday night, and there’s going to be some more changes, we had a pretty robust discussion. We had a great attendance from members of the public, who had some concerns about some developments. We are making some more changes that will come back to us at our March city council meeting. Vice Mayor Landry wasn’t able to be at our workshop, he had a prior family commitment. So I have a feeling that there’ll be some more discussion. I know, he has some opinions on this ordinance and he definitely needs to be heard on that as well. So I encourage citizens to come to that city council meeting. They can make comments, to council and to staff. They can’t ask questions back and forth, but they can make comments during the portion of our meeting that we are discussing that ordinance. Also there’s another opportunity at public comment. So I encourage them to come. I know that there are a lot of concerns about development and about our infrastructure. We’re concerned about that as well. We just want to make sure that any development is being responsible and that the city is being responsible in how we handle developments. And the hotel/motel ordinance is city wide. I know there are some individuals who are, like I said, focusing on one development, and it may apply to one development. However, we are focusing this city wide because there are other potential developments that this would affect. So we’re just trying to make sure that we have an ordinance in place that’s good for our city and good for further development if somebody wants to try to develop based on this.”

The hurricane evacuation modeling will certainly affect the future.

Still said, “I watched, I wasn’t able to attend the Board of County Commissioners last meeting, but I try to watch if there’s something that that they’re going to discuss that affects the city. I think they have a plan in motion to address some of that and to involve the other stakeholders. I think that’s wonderful. We all need to work together. So I’m just asking the public to pay attention to agendas from them and also us and also, if there are workshops to please try to make plans to attend. We need our residents to be actively involved in helping make the decisions that we need to make.”

Baseball and softball are rich traditions in Marathon.

Still said, “We have games tonight. Tomorrow night, we have a girls softball game and a baseball game. Our girls softball I do believe is undefeated this season. They won an away game yesterday, they won a game last week. So I’m looking forward to seeing their game tomorrow night. I volunteer in the concession stand. So I can see some of the game but I’m going to try to see a whole lot more of the girls softball because my Take Stock mentee plays on the team. So I want to make sure I watch some of that. But I’m encouraging the public to come out and support these kids. They give their hearts to these sports and athletics and it says a lot to them when the crowd shows up to cheer for them.”

The next Marathon City Council meeting will be March 12 at 5:30 at City Hall.

Still said, “Make plans to attend and also I just want to give a shout out to Marathon youth sports. Their T ball season kicks off Saturday. Heaven help us all I’m throwing out the first pitch. My Take Stock mentee doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to teach me very quickly, okay, help me judge my pitch so it doesn’t look bad. The fields are crowded. It is amazing to watch these kids. My kids are our teenagers, my youngest is 18. So I don’t get to see that joy of these kids playing. So come out. If you want something to make you just feel good, come out and watch some of these games for these kids.”