Robyn Still, member of Marathon City Council, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the city.
The Seven Mile Bridge Run over the weekend saw about 1,500 runners.
Still said, “That is amazing and all of the community partners, the sheriff’s office, other law enforcement partners, the school system, all kinds of civic organizations, all come together to help Ginger Sayer and her group put on the most wonderful event. Safety is dialed in. Signage is up so people know well in advance that the road is going to be closed and it just goes off awesome, even though those runners, I think I heard 25 mile per hour head winds, they were running into. You can find the results online. I just Google searched it, and I got to see all of our locals that I knew, who were amazing, who were running it. This year, I was at the Island Fest up in Islamorada, I had a booth up there. I didn’t realize what the date was when I booked it, but I hated missing the Seven Mile Bridge run. But I’m telling you, the folks up in Islamorada, the Chamber of Commerce, had that event so well organized, and the weather was beautiful.”
The Marathon Community Theater continues to raise funds to repair the roof.
Still said, “They definitely need help with that. I mean, that is such a gem in our community, and it just opens up opportunities for our residents to either attend a production or be a part of a production, or if you don’t want to be part of it, you can volunteer, and we volunteered there before, my husband’s on the board, and that’s just an organization we definitely believe in. They have a wonderful children’s program in the summer. We don’t have any kids that age that participate in that summer camp where they have a production, but I will never, unless I’m out of town visiting my mom or sick, I will never miss their production. It is the best thing to go see our local kids in that production and to see what hard work the volunteers that run that program do and put into it. I cannot emphasize and urge you enough to go attend that production, along with the other productions that the adults do, but that kids production, they have a limited amount of time, and some of these kids have never had this experience before, and you will laugh and you will feel good when you leave and you’ll want to go back.”
The Marathon City Council will meet tomorrow where storm water issues on Sombrero Boulevard will be discussed.
Still said, “We’re going to be discussing the timing, the process for traffic control for those improvements, kind of letting people know how that’s going to progress over the summer months. It’s going to be obviously an inconvenience for some people, maybe that’s not a good word, but there’s going to be some changes with some lane closures, I would imagine, while that’s being taken care of, I just want people to keep in mind that even though you’re inconvenienced, even though you’re slowed down, even though it might be down to one lane or traffic might be blocked, just keep in mind that is to help alleviate the flooding problems that we have on Sombrero Boulevard. I wish it was an easier solution and easier, less inconveniencing fix, but unfortunately, there will be construction going on to get that fixed, so kind of keep your eye on the end of the tunnel the lights coming. There will be a fix. I know the city’s done a better job. We’ve not had a lot of rain lately, but we’ve really tried to be on top of monitoring that and making sure that those pumps that are in place right now are turned on well in advance of maybe there being a flooding issue. I know that’s helped, but this is supposed to be a solution for that, so just kind of bear with us while that’s all going on. Whatever they’re putting in place is supposed to help minimize that flooding.”
What else is on the agenda?
Still said, “It looks like we have a couple things that we’ve already heard before some development agreements, and I think this is something we’ve already heard for those resolutions. We have an ordinance for first public hearing. There’s just a couple resolutions that are on their, ones on consent. It doesn’t look like a very heavy agenda, so I know that probably what most people will be interested in will be to talk about some Sombrero Boulevard.”
Talk in Tallahassee has been about ROGO as well as possible sales tax reductions and property tax reductions.
Still said, “As a resident and a taxpayer, you have concerns because you don’t know what’s going to happen with that and I don’t know how I feel about that whole issue. You can look at it a couple of different ways. You eliminate sales tax, of course, that makes things cheaper for us as consumers, but we also have a large influx of visitors that come in and they’re purchasing here. So that sales tax locally, a lot of that is paid by visitors, not just your residents. So I’m not really sure. I’m kind of sitting back and watching to see how all of that’s going to work out. The same with the ROGO. I mean, you don’t know how that’s going to work out. At this point there have been changes. Obviously the city of Marathon’s in a kind of a unique situation, and we do need building allocations, so we’re going to be happy to get what we do get, and then we go forward with distributing them. Again, I emphasize every time I talk about this, the city of Marathon is not giving those out all at one time. It will be spread out over a number of years. Those number of years now is to be determined. The city of Marathon was looking at 40 years. I think the legislature is looking maybe a little bit less, but at the end of the day, I’m not really sure where that’s going to land. We’re just kind of sitting back and watching to see what’s going to happen with that.”
Cutbacks are also being discussed on the state level, which brings up the home rule versus state mandate topic.
Still said, “It’s going to be interesting. I hope we can retain some home rule, basically, when I tell people local voices making local choices. We know our community better than somebody who does not live here, is not familiar with it, and that goes for any community in the state and the nation for that matter.”
An Easter egg hunt is coming up.
Still said, “The City Community Park is going to have an Easter egg hunt on the 15th from 5pm to 7pm. I’ve heard rumor that the Easter Bunny may be there. I am looking forward to going out to see the Easter Bunny and to see all the kids. It’s always fun to watch the kids. My kids are too old to do that, so it’s fun to watch others do that. A couple awesome productions that are coming up, the Marathon High School is doing Footloose. That is April 11 through 13th. You can still get your tickets. I plan to attend. And then Stanley Switlik is doing Frozen and that is Wednesday, April 16 through the 17th. So it looks like we are going to have a very busy theater going event.”