George Garrett, City Manager 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.
Marathon City Council had a meeting last night.
Garrett said, “I’m going to say it was kind of a, I’m going to say routine meeting. I’m not even sure it was that, because when it got down to it, not a whole lot on the agenda. There’s going to be a Sombrero Beach Run. There’s going to be a Seafood Festival. The one substantive thing yesterday was with shifts in what’s happening with I’ll just say homelessness, both at the federal level, the state level and then obviously the local level with 20th Street. We have had a resolution that talks about trespass on public property. It’s hard to find because it’s a resolution. So we just converted that to an ordinance saying essentially the same thing. At that point it would be easier for the Sheriff’s Department to enforce but it essentially means and says that you’re not allowed to camp on city property or sleep overnight on city property. So for obvious reasons, the bigger issue of homelessness continues.”
20th Street was cleared recently and the city wants to make sure other congregations can’t happen elsewhere in the city.
Garrett said, “The simple version of what has happened is I think there is a presumption that folks would just disseminate, they’d go elsewhere. Of course, one of the logical things is that they begin to gravitate towards our parks, which are open spaces, and they’re comfortable, they’re bathrooms, etc., but at the end of the day, you can be there and it doesn’t matter what your condition, it doesn’t matter whether you’re rich, poor or anything else. You can be there, but nobody can sleep there overnight, and that’s where the trespass issue comes in. So it doesn’t matter who you are. Essentially, we just passed in the first hearing, an ordinance that says you can’t be sleeping on our city properties, and we’ll go from there, but again, without getting into the complexities of homelessness and providing services or not, that continues, and we’ll deal with it.”
There was also action regarding the Army Corps of Engineers.
Garrett said, “Back in the in the late 90s, Congressman Peter Deutsch passed a bill in Congress, federal in Congress, called the Water Quality Improvement Program. Since then, the entire county has been working under the auspices of the Water Quality Protection Program. It’s an authorization for $100 million. It was recently updated or modified to bring it to now $200 million, so it gives us extra money that we can seek through Congress. Again, it is an authorization. It’s not an appropriation. So it gives us the ability to go to Congress every year and go under the Florida Keys Water Quality Improvement Act, we’re seeking funding for water quality improvement projects, and the first $100 million we’re very, very close this year to having closed that out, I think there’s a little under $10 million left. The parties that are still a part of that, and there’s three of them, will be seeking those funds this year, and we hope we’ll get them, and then it progresses to the next $100 million, and there will be additional parties as part of that. But what happened last night is a modification of our specific agreement with the Corps of Engineers who actually manages the money under what we call FKWQIP, and it essentially adds to the list of projects that were authorized to seek funding for, of course, our deep well project, which we’re currently working on. So that’s what the modification was last night. We can now seek funding under FKWQIP, Florida Keys Water Quality Improvement Program, we can seek funding through Congress for our deep well project.”
Did the deep well project come out of legal proceedings?
Garrett said, “I want to make clear from the city’s perspective, we signed an agreement, effectively closing out a lawsuit between the city of Marathon and a group called FOLKs. They’re Friends of the Lower Keys. The bottom line for us was we admitted nothing. It was really a settlement to move on progressively to put in a deep well. I think the city, me in particular, but certainly the experts we hired would argue that we are still in compliance with the law. We admitted nothing other than that in settling the lawsuit, but we agreed that the better part of valor, if you will, was to move forward, to put in a deep well and however we argued the case and however it would have gone to court, I think there’s no question that putting it down a deep well is a better solution than the way it is now, again, admitting nothing, but if I put it down 150 foot well, then water leaks to wherever it leaks to, but it’s nearby, it’s going to come to the surface at some point. If I put it down a 3,000 foot, well, it’s probably not coming up to anywhere anytime soon. So I think that’s fairly sad, that it’s a better solution. But again, we’re moving forward with that. We’re already in the engineering phases. We’re already seeking grants to fund it completely, and loans. We’re already seeking permits and our deadline is the end of December of 2028. So we’re moving forward.”
Is there another lawsuit the city is dealing with about a takings case?
Garrett said, “The simple version, I think the facts are that an owner of a piece property, it was an island north of Marathon, part of Marathon, but it’s just north of our main shores. They sought a permit. They were denied that permit back in 2004. There’s been a lawsuit ongoing over the fact that they were denied a permit for 21 years now, and it falls under this category called a take. Essentially what it normally says is, if all beneficial use of your property is taken, then the government owes you the value of that property. There are a number of tenants under which taking cases typically operate based on previous Supreme Court actions. There’s really a couple of legs that that typically stands on, a couple of very prime cases in the past and the third district court of appeals in this particular case has heard it and effectively changed what might be the outcome of not only our case in this instance, but potential cases in the future, really rewriting anybody’s view of how takings cases typically work into the future. So I think the concern that we all have is not just over the outcome of this case, but the fact that if all beneficial use or a court determined all beneficial use has been lost via a government action, then it’s a take, and at that point, the constitution would say you pay for it or potentially issue a permit for it. But it really means that if zonings change, for instance, in 1986 through the county comp plan, and ultimately we operate under what is an off shoot at the county’s comp plan in 1986, potentially, we can go back to all down zone properties that are now private ownership and ask the question about whether there’s a potential take there or not, and of course, let’s set that all aside for a minute. It’s a conversation you and I are having, the folks on the radio are hearing, but at the end of the day, we are going to appeal the position we’re in right now concerning the third district court decision. Steve Williams asked the question of council last night, can we have a special session, which we will have coming up at the end of February. I believe and I say that simply because it’s not determined yet, but at that session, an appeal will be the subject of a conversation with council in a private session the end of the month. At that point, this case continues, or would continue. It’s 21 years in the continuation right now. I think we’ve all sort of decided that if it is appealed, then we’ll all be here 10 years from now, still talking about it. It’s a serious case, though. It really does change, potentially change sort of the tenants under which takings cases are normally considered. So it’s an important case. I think it’s what we’ve been saying for now going on our second year, that takings cases are serious as much as people have said they may not be. I understand why they’ve said that. Well, unless the case shows up and actually goes to court, you don’t have a takings case. Well, yeah, you’re right, but now you’ve got the concern over this case and its potential liabilities through additional cases that may come in the future, and honestly that now gets back to what’s coming in the legislature this year. We know that our delegation, our Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez and Jim Mooney, our state representative, have filed language for bills. They haven’t come out as bills yet, but potentially, they address the issue that we’re talking about here, providing more permits to not just the city of Marathon, but the entire jurisdiction of the Keys and the area of critical state concern. So we would potentially have permits to issue into the future and for, I think, stretched out over what I’m understanding based on my knowledge of what went into the drafting of these bills, it stretches units out over a course of 40 years and probably reduce how many permits, throughout the Keys, how many permits would be issued per year, by almost a quarter, I think somewhere, maybe a third, depending on how it all works out. But anyway, that’s that hasn’t come out of bill drafting yet, so we don’t know where it’s going to go.”
Has Marathon seen any red tide issues?
Garrett said, “It’s under FWC, those guys right now are the source. I know that the red tide’s out there, that there is some concern over it, and no question it’s happening. I worry about it like everybody else, because we’re concerned about spinning fish, which, everything I understand, have nothing to do with the red tides, probably does have to do with the with an organism, the microscopic organism, yes, but exactly what’s happening there, I don’t know that anybody really knows yet. They’re getting closer. So we just need to pay attention and I guess if I had a bottom line here, and I don’t want to say it too loudly, because not my responsibility, ultimately, but the reason for red tides comes down the east and the west coast of Florida because they haven’t done what we’ve done to protect our near shore. We’re not perfect, don’t get me wrong, but they haven’t done what we’ve done to put in good storm water systems and good wastewater systems to keep the nutrients out of the near shore. That’s all I can say. Hopefully, as people upgrade their systems, over time, these things go away. Somewhere along the line, it actually intersected with the discussions about our deep well, this was the issues of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceuticals collecting in fish. Heck, we can take that all the way back to the days of DDT in pelicans and other organisms. I mean this is a continuous discussion with continuous problems. FIU did a study on the pharmaceuticals, and they’ve now looked Caribbean and Gulf of I’m going to say Mexico, America wide. They’re seeing pharmaceutical concentrations in fish throughout. The interesting thing, I’m not really making a scientific point. I’m just making an observational point, one of the highest areas, and it was two to three, maybe even four times the concentrations in fish we’re out in the Tortugas. When you look at that, when they presented that at a water quality steering committee one day, I went, really? We’ve done our job as best we can here to manage sewer, sewage and the keys and but there’s still levels and then I go out to the Tortugas, and it’s so much higher. They had a reason. I don’t agree with the reason. In fact, I think it’s wrong, but again, they’re closer to it than I am. I think the issue is, if it’s high in the Tortugas, why? Because it’s coming from elsewhere. Again, I speak back to the Gulf of Mexico, the West Florida shelf. I mean, things coming off of those areas coming down through the Tortugas, and we know the currents do that. So the point is that no place, even as far away from land as the Tortugas are, are really protected from the impacts of what happens on our shorelines, throughout south Florida all the way around to Cancun, Mexico and Cuba, we’re surrounded by land that is putting stuff in the water every day as part of what we do to live.”