Marathon Vice Mayor and City Council Member 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.
New fees for parking and boat ramp usage for tourists and visitors in Marathon began on the first of the month. If your vehicle is registered to an address in Marathon, there is no fee.
Still said, “If you’re a local resident, it’s completely free. You don’t have to do anything. You go to the beach, you park, you get out of your car, you get out any enjoy the beach. You can bypass the kiosk. The same with if you are using one of the public ramps to launch your boat or to pull it out. You don’t have to enter any tag information. Your tag is already recognized by the camera system that’s in place and you can go about your day.”
Since the Marathon Building Department has been running at a surplus, building permit refunds will be distributed.
Still explained, “We have an outside firm we contract with who did a study, looked at all of our numbers, all the financial and they determined what that excess was and we have lowered as of last city council meeting last month, lowered building permit fees moving forward. However we had the excess for the people who have paid in the past and we have a resolution coming to us next Tuesday night where we are going to do refunds from people who applied for permits from December 14, 2020 through March 14, 2023.”
People who are eligible will have to apply no later than September 30. An application will be available through the city and more information will be available at next Tuesday’s council meeting.
Still said, “The difference in the fees that are charged now compared to what they paid then is my understanding is what’s going to be refunded. It will be paid to the property owner of record at the time the permit was applied for and obtained. So if the property is sold, the new property owner will not be eligible. It will be the person who actually applied previously. The contractors are not going to be eligible. It will be the property owner.”
The process took a while because some of the people on council are eligible for the refund and the issue went in front of the ethics committee to decide if those folks could vote on the topic.
Still said, “It’s been determined that we can waive any rebate personally and that’s what my understanding is all of us are going to do. That way our citizens and our residents get their refund.”
A workshop for solar energy was held recently and information on a solar co-op was discussed.
Still said, “It gave anybody interested an opportunity to sign up for the co-op.”
The first hearing for the ordinance for electronic bicycles will be coming up Tuesday night as well.
Still said, “Also we will have from city staff the report on the scoring for the non-profit grants that we voted to extend to non-profits in the city of Marathon.”
The city will provide $100,000 to non-profits in grant money.
Still said, “I am very excited about that. I am just very, very happy that we are able to put some money in the hands of those non-profits that are set up to help our residents.”
This weekend the Marathon Rotary Club will host an Easter egg hunt at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Rotary Children’s Park. The Easter bunny will be on hand and thousands of Easter eggs will be hidden in the park.
For adults who would like to hunt Easter eggs, Presents in Paradise will hold an Easter egg hunt at 6 p.m. at Havana Jack’s.
Still said, “Happy Easter to everybody.”
The agenda for next Tuesday’s meeting can be viewed here: https://www.ci.marathon.fl.us/sites/default/files/fileattachments/city_council/meeting/32307/00_agenda.pdf