Robyn Still, Council Member for the city of Marathon, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the city.
The city sure has been busy with the holiday season.
Still said, “You only have to go to the grocery store, and you better go early, because if you don’t, you and the masses are going to be there, which is a good thing for our businesses. We just have to keep in mind to be patient. I know we enjoy it when we can go and the roads aren’t full and the stores are not full, but a large majority of us, myself included, we depend on tourism, and it’s a necessary thing for us, and we just have to remember that and try to be patient and understand that folks are here to enjoy a beautiful location, and we go on vacation places, and we want to enjoy it, and we just kind of have to go back to that mindset of we visit other places also, and that the people who live in those places probably feel the same way we do. So we just need to be gracious and just take a deep breath and just be polite and just understand that this does support a large majority of our families here.”
A public notice came out recently from the city of Marathon about new garbage cans.
Still said, “There’s just a lot of confusion involving those new garbage cans. Change is hard, but waste management through the county, it’s not the city, has decided that we’re going to go to the 96 gallon cans. Also, you take a step back and think that that is really one can versus the multiple cans all of us, myself included, have used in the past. So they’re transitioning to that. They’ve got some good reasoning behind it. It’s sometimes safer for their workers. Also, it works better with their trucks. So we just need to transition to that, and until everybody kind of gets used to putting their garbage effective, I guess tomorrow my garbage runs, we use those bigger cans, they’re not going to be any fines, because this is kind of a changeover, and everybody has to learn a new habit. So just in the interest of that, the city is trying to give everybody a little bit of a period of time to get used to it. I don’t know when I carry my garbage out tonight, old habit is to put it in those small cans. I’m going to have to really think hard. Wait a minute, you can’t do that, so just kind of get used to it and this is kind of a changeover period. Eventually we’ll go back to code enforcing our ordinances on the garbage pants, but right now, we’re just trying to give a little phasing in period, so everybody can kind of get used to it. Everybody should have their new containers now. We have ours, but everybody should have already gotten them. I know that the garbage service is getting, I see on Facebook a lot of complaints about it, but service is still going to be the same. You’re still in that 96 gallon container, you’re still getting a lot of garbage in there. I think I saw somewhere about the number of bags per day that you could have put in there and it’s really equaling out to basically exactly what we’re using now. It’s just in one container. So I try to look at positive things. I’m dragging one container back down my driveway, as opposed to three or four. I try to find the positive in everything.”
Do those containers also affect those being serviced by Marathon garbage service?
Still confirmed, “Absolutely. They do. It’s county wide. So unless you have a private outside person who’s going to come pick up your garbage, I know there’s some companies that do that kind of stuff. If you are having in the city of Marathon by Marathon garbage service, you will need to use those cans. If you have questions about it, you can call them. They’re wonderful. They’ll answer those questions for you and if, for some reason, you are a household that, for some reason, uses more than will fit into that one container, you can call for an additional one. There is a fee, I believe, associated with that. I don’t know what that fee is, but you can call and you can pay for that additional service. I don’t know what it is, but they’re wonderful, and they’ll answer your questions,”
The city will likely be busy on New Year’s Eve.
Still said, “Our store is open. So the night of New Year’s Eve will be very early, because our store opens at 7am but I know there are a lot of things that are happening around town at some of the private restaurants. I just urge folks to go out and to enjoy that, to celebrate safely. If you have celebrated a little too much, there are Ubers and there are taxis. So call one of those folks to take you home. If you’re not sure if you’re able to drive safely, please make a phone call. Our sheriff’s office is wonderful, and they’re out there patrolling, trying to keep us all safe and you don’t want the ride from them, you’re probably going the opposite direction of your house in that case.”
The ROGO and BPAS situation is now awaiting approval by the state legislature.
Still said, “The county had a special meeting this month as well and the city drafted a resolution for what we would like the county to ask the state for as far as ROGO and BPAS, and so coming up into this legislative session, that’s going to be probably one of our top topics, and one of our top priorities is to get that resolved so we can avoid taking cases and Florida Keys Day when we go up to Tallahassee is March 13, which is about a month later than we normally go, but that’s going to be one of our legislative priorities, and in our upcoming, probably workshop, maybe in January, we’re going to talk about those legislative priorities. I would assume we would be doing that before we go. That’s generally been the case in the past. I’ve not seen what our topics are. The schedule’s not been uploaded into the city website. I would imagine that’s going to be done probably this week. But yes, we’re definitely going to be talking about that. The county is going to be talking about it. It’s a serious topic and we’re facing some risk if we don’t get some more allocations. It doesn’t mean we have to give them all out at once. The city, our resolution was us to give out what whatever we were to get over a 40 year period, which really gives the allocations about the same rate we’re doing now. But we also have to make sure that infrastructure will support any allocations that are given out. A lot of people are worried that if we got, let’s say we got 200, just a number, just pulling a random number. A lot of people are concerned that we’re going to tomorrow give out all 200. That is absolutely not the case. There will be more upcoming discussion in city council meetings as to how we would allocate whatever we may get if we get anything. So just because there’s been a resolution of what we want to ask the state for, it does not mean that’s a final decision on how things are going to be done. So residents will still have opportunities to come before city council and give their opinion on how whatever it is we get, gets allocated.”
What else could we be looking at for 2025?
Still said, “We’re moving forward with Sombrero Boulevard. I know with all of the rain we got yesterday, we hadn’t had rain in a while, so there had not been that ponding on the road issue that we’d had in the past. I know the pumps were running yesterday, but there is in the works, the plans to hopefully mitigate that flooding in the future. We’re moving forward with that, obviously the restrooms at the Quay and some of our other projects. We’re moving forward. You’ll see some progress on that in 2025.”
City offices will be closed New Year’s Day.
Still said, “You, your family, your listeners, have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve and Happy New Year. And let’s look forward to a wonderful 2025.”