Lynn Landry, Marathon Council Member, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the city.
Marathon City Council will meet tonight at 5:30.
Landry said, “It appears to be a very, very long agenda. However, it’s really not. It’s just going to take some time because of the Department of Commerce and name changes every so often for our land planning agency for the state, and we have a substantial amount of land development regulation changes and ordinance changes that are changing the name from Department of Commerce to state land planning agencies, so that if they ever change their name again, which could possibly happen after next election, we will have it covered, and we won’t have to do this again, because last time we did this, they changed their name, like a few months after that. So here we are again, just making subtle changes in those ordinances and land development regulations to state that it’s a land planning agency.”
The deep injection well project is also underway.
Landry said, “We have undertaken a nine month project throughout the main part of the city to put the piping in for our infrastructure for the deep well, which we are under a federal court order to have installed by 2028 and we’ll be putting the deep well out at area six on Cocoa Plum. Because it’s a nine month project, it’s going to affect this season for sure, and hopefully we can get it completed before next season, but constantly in the city of Marathon these couple miles right now, DOT ,the sheriff, our officials, everybody has been talking about this. There’s going to be some delays. If you can rearrange your schedule to plan accordingly, that would be great. I know it’s going to impact a lot of our trades and people who have to travel back and forth in town on a regular basis, but we are with FDOT, the sheriff, our people constantly looking at this, trying to make adjustments to it, to ease and help the flow of traffic through the city of Marathon. But again, this is a federal court order. We have to get this going. And while we would love to do this and impact outside of season, this particular case, we have no choice. It’s a nine month project.”
Marathon Council voted recently to increase the vacation rental fees, but not as much as originally had been discussed. It will be a $100 increase for registration renewal fees for rentals with two or fewer bedrooms, and a $200 increase for rentals with more than two bedrooms.
Landry said, “That was a fairly spirited debate that we had on the dais, which we do have those on occasion, and we came to that agreement. But we’ve also agreed to do a study on vacation rental fees, so they’ll be bringing that back, hopefully in the near future to mid range future, to do a study on those and the impacts, we just need to agree as a council on exactly what the study is going to encompass, to make sure that we do it right and legally, so that we don’t put ourselves in the way of a lawsuit. Because even if we change the fees and somebody objects to it or sues us, it could tie us back to the vacation rental ordinances. So we want to be very cautious on that. I know our attorney has cautioned us on that over the years. So again, we did a very slight increase just because of costs going up in the city of Marathon. But I think we settled in a good place with the council and the city.”
The property tax issue is also still in discussions in the state.
Landry said, “It’s something that will affect the city of Marathon if it happens. I know the President of the Senate, they’re not taking it up during the session, but I did see a press release he and the governor have been talking, I think that they may actually discuss it in a special session after the normal session up there. So we’ll see how that goes. One thing that the city of Marathon, and I’ve been watching this trend, and I did some research on it, we’re down to about 15.8% of all residential homes in the city of Marathon that are homesteaded. That number has been in decline for several years. We’ve become more of a second home community. That’s a small number. It was really surprising when I did the research to find out that we are in the decline, and it’s been a steady decline I did about the last five or six years, and we’ve been steadily declining over that time frame as well. It could have an impact if they go after property taxes for homesteaded properties, it’s going to impact the city of Marathon when $11 million comes from ad valorem taxes, which is about 40% to 45% of our actual general fund revenue, it’s still going to impact us. If it’s two, three, $4 million that’s a huge impact on, I think it’s a 25 or $35 million overall general fund budget. So it will still have to figure out ways to accomplish it. But the biggest concern for me is, okay, we want to do away with property taxes. What’s the alternative? Yes, municipal government still has to provide essential services, and we’re mandated by state law to provide certain services, and we just need a way to go ahead and continue to fund those and provide the services that we have to in the city of Marathon.”
The Marathon Seafood Festival is coming up this weekend.
Landry said, “Please be patient. I know the traffic and the lane closures in the city of Marathon is going to hinder some of that, but be patient. Sheriff Ramsay is going to have patrols out there helping with the traffic situation at the festival, in the festival and around the city of Marathon. So be patient. We’ll get to our destination, and hopefully everybody can show up and support the Marathon Seafood Festival, which is a great, great event for this city.”

