Mayor of the City of Marathon, 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.
There are three different meetings in the city of Marathon coming up in September.
Still said, “We have a meeting tonight. Normally it would have been just a regular workshop, but because of some staff and council and our city manager, we were out of town for a normal, scheduled meeting earlier this month. Our meeting was rescheduled until tonight, and we will have the workshop on top of the regular city council meeting. But in September, if you can’t make tonight, you can’t watch it live or watch the recording, you have three opportunities in September. That would be our regular meeting on September 10, another meeting on September 17, and then our workshop should be the 24th. That September 17 and 24th meeting are going to be our hearings on our budget. So if you’re interested in hearing about our budget and the allocations that are happening there, those are the meetings, particularly the 17th and 24th, although I do expect we probably will have some conversation about it on maybe even tonight, but the 10th at least. So there are definitely three occasions that you would have a chance to come in and hear about the budget and to kind of see what’s going on with that.”
Are there any unusual aspects to the budget?
Still said, “It’s kind of business as usual. Obviously, everything is going up. Our costs are going up, so property values are higher. So we did set our millage rate to the 2.4477 which was the same as last year. That was our rollback budget, which means we won’t go any higher than that. Our goal is to see what we can trim from the budget to go lower. We obviously would like to meet rollback, but I’m not sure if we will achieve that or not. We’re going to have to see, I want to see what the other council members, what their ideas are. I know our staff insurance, the health insurance, is looking at an increase. Hopefully that increase is not going to be substantial, but it’s important, I think, that we stay with the current insurance company we have. We only have an option of three here, one we left, so I’m not sure they would be very happy to see us come back, or they would probably pass on some significant rate increases. Right now, our staff, our employees, have established the doctor’s offices with their current insurance company. If you’ve ever had to try to switch with insurance companies and to find a new doctor that can be tough, and especially down here with the limited providers that we have. So we did a study to try to kind of find out where our staff is in comparison to other areas, salary wise, and there’ll be some increases there, I think, just to get us kind of on par, and to kind of get us a plan going forward. We’re also talking about bringing our landscaping in house. So that would obviously add some new employees to our budget. We’ll see what everybody else thinks about that too. Right now, I think we’re sitting on reserves. We have at least 365 days and I want to say we have an additional 23 days in reserve in the case of an emergency or hopefully, I don’t want to say the word too loud, storm, but that’s healthy. That’s good. That means we could run our city for just over a year if something were to happen. I’m telling people just kind of stand by, and if you have comments you want to make, please come to the meetings or reach out to your council members.”
A new fire chief was hired in the city of Marathon.
Still said, “James Muro. He is wonderful. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him and attending events with him since his hire, which has not been that long. So he has really hit the ground like full speed. He is extremely knowledgeable. He has been around, so he’s not coming from another state. He was working with a Baptist network. He was working during Hurricane Irma. So the bonus there also, not only with his education and his background, he’s had experience with helping a community, our community, a Keys community, recover in the aftermath of a storm, which I think is invaluable. He doesn’t have to learn as he goes, so to speak. So if we were to have a storm, he knows what to do. So I think we’re ahead of the game there with him. He will be at council meeting tonight, and he will be talking about, basically the emergency management procedures for declared storms, letting the public know and letting council know what everybody’s role is in the event of a declared emergency, which I think is really important. It’s important for council to know what our roles are, what the city manager’s role is, and what the residents can expect. So if you can only tune into that section of the city council meeting, I think that would be a pretty informative session or portion of it. I’m looking forward to hearing that as well. We had another meeting, and I learned some things about what the duty of a mayor would be during that and other council members, what your involvement is and is not. So I think that’s really important. It’s important for our residents to know, especially if we have an emergency and you’re looking for answers, and you’re wanting to know what’s happening, because your house may be damaged, you may not be able to get back to your house. It’s important to know where’s that information coming from, who’s doing what and when it’s being done.”
Five people have recently announced they’re running for two open seats for the Marathon city council.
Still said, “If you went and voted, and I hope you did, at the primary, you will have noticed that there was no selection for City Council in the city of Marathon. That’s because this race is nonpartisan, which means it doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you run in the general election in November. There are two seats that are open. The first is Luis Gonzalez, who has served as our mayor, our Vice Mayor, as a council member, he is what’s called terming out. He’s served two terms back to back, and then he has to sit out for a full term if he were to want to run for city council again. The second seat is Kenny Matlock’s seat. The reason he’s having to run this time, this close to the last election, is because the seat that he won is the seat that had been vacated, and I had originally been appointed to, so that was on this election cycle. So he had a shorter term, and now he is having to run for his full three year term. So there are two seats available. There are five people who are running. It’s very important that residents and voters know that you don’t have to pick just one. You vote for your top two choices, and then the two individuals of those five who are running, who get the most votes are the two who are elected. So it’s very important that you vote for two because of those five, the two top vote getters are the members who will be on city council. So your vote is very important.”
ROGO and BPAS are also continuing topics.
Still said, “Monroe County Board of County Commissioners has been doing, Kimberly Matthews with them, has been doing a series of workshops that are targeted to finding out what our residents feel about our ROGO, that’s rate of growth ordinance or BPAS, building permit allocation system, to find out how they feel about how many building allocations we need to ask the state for. We’re going to have to ask them for a number of building allocations and the Board of County Commissioners has taken on the huge task of conducting multiple surveys and rounds of surveys to ask our residents what their thoughts and feelings are, what their concerns are. You can go to the Board of County Commissioners website. At the very bottom of that page is a tab. It says, ROGO 2024 learn more here. You can click on that. You can find out where those workshops are. You can find out about ROGO and BPAS if you don’t understand that, it can be a little bit confusing. Please pay attention to this, because it’s very important. We’ll announce it tonight, and I’ll post it. I’ll make sure the city gets it posted. But it’s important that regardless of where you live, that you do one of these surveys. Some people have said that it doesn’t affect them because they live in an area of the Keys that they have no more areas to build in. But I try to emphasize to people that what affects one portion of the Keys affects the entirety of the Keys, and that’s one of the reasons the county has taken on this huge task. Monroe County is the entirety of the Keys. So this is important. I mean, all the municipalities are working together with the county, and the county’s done an excellent job of getting Kimberly Matthews out there. You need to thank her when you see her, because she is everywhere right now. I don’t know when she’s sleeping.”
For more information about Marathon’s council meeting tonight, click here: https://www.ci.marathon.fl.us/meetings