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.
The Marathon City Council met last night and was presented with funds from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office which were unused.
Garrett said, “When we get that, it really is like a savings account to us. It either offsets some other things that we’re working on, or what have you. We appreciate it. We appreciate the fantastic job the sheriff’s department does within the city of Marathon. I will say we had a shooting here in Marathon, which is something that simply doesn’t happen, but it did, and in the course of that evening, as it began, I had, I think, three phone calls from Rick Ramsey, the sheriff.”
Sheriff Rick Ramsay was on scene at the shooting.
Garrett said, “The fact is, we know each other well. We work with each other. We’re appreciative of the work that they do. They keep us informed as we keep them informed when something’s happening. So our fire department works well with them, etc. So, yeah, much appreciated. We’re working together. That’s what it is in a small local government like we operate within.”
The city of Marathon also provides nonprofit grants.
Garrett said, “I think the discussion we had last night really was a very focused discussion about that. We’ll actually discuss the detailed layout coming up in the workshop on the 27th but the one thing that did come up was Mel Montagne representing FIRM, was one of the applicants, and I think we recognized yesterday, and council agreed to kind of separate them out from the normal nonprofit sort of discussion. Because, frankly, every year we are looking to FIRM to do part of what we do as a government. I mean, we’re out trying to protect our citizens’ pocketbooks from the oversight of our insurance entities like Citizens and Mel and FIRM, they’re always there. I think what was said last night was, we’re going to support FIRM always, and it’s probably going to be separate, really, from the workings of other nonprofits. They’re going to be pretty well guaranteed something from the city of Marathon as other jurisdictions to help us keep those insurance rates down. So that was the one thing that was discussed last night and then we’ll see the rest of them coming up on the 27th.”
The rebuilding of the skate park at Community Park was also discussed.
Garrett said, “It’s hit a couple bumps in the road over time, but frankly, it’s going to happen. We’ve been working on design. We’re going to push the placement of the new skate park to the east, a little bit from where the old one was along the east side of the park and near US 1 and it’ll be maybe as a more functional project area a little bit bigger, probably one and a half to two times the size of what it was. It’s going to be more inclusive of the rest of the community park area. It’s not going to be fenced in like it was before. So it really will be something that you can transition back and forth from and to as maybe you’re watching the soccer game and one of your kids is over there skating or something like that. So that, literally, that contract was approved last night, and the contractor that we’ve selected, we’ve been working with her a while now, a couple of years, and they’ve done a project up I think it was the Orlando area. The one up in Orlando, they did in that area, they did in roughly 90 days. So once they get started, I mean, we could look to see a skate park up finished and available for our kids and families by the end of the year, maybe sooner. So that’d be cool.”
Another project is a splash pad.
Garrett said, “The United Way had gifted, through one of its owners, the money to put in a splash pad. So we’re, in fact, building part of the infrastructure for that splash pad into the skate park development, so we can get all that infrastructure done at once. Then as we hire that splash pad contractor, which we talked to Key West, they had a great project down there, and one of their smaller splash pads, they think the contractor there was fantastic. So we are going to piggyback on a contract that they had for that smaller splash pad down there, and I’m hoping that it’ll be a month or two behind the start of the skate park, but probably will be done by the end of the year, too, or maybe early part of next year. So a couple of really cool projects and along with it, we’re about ready if the fields where the soccer play goes on, we’re going to replace those fields too.”
What could we expect from the state budget?
Garrett said, “We have a couple things in there, budget wise, we have an affordable housing project in the budget. We believe we’re going to get that. We know Stewardship is in the budget, and of course, the two Houses are going to have to come to parity. We’re hoping that happens relatively quickly. We don’t see any threat right now, at least to the things that we’ve got potentially in the budget, so we’re just going to have to wait that out. Then the other thing that obviously was dealt with this year and down, there’s a host of other things, but of course, the ROGO/BPAS question, and we did come out the other side with a determination. It was an a nail biter, because it got down to literally the last hour of the legislative session, to be able to get that back together and get it approved by the two Houses. I think the thing that worries us most, and it really ought to worry everybody, when it gets down to it, is that a part of that legislation says simply that it will be one unit per one lot, and yet the legislation emphasizes affordable housing. You cannot period, cannot period, and I’ll say it two more times, if need be, build an affordable house on as one unit per lot. Will not happen. Can’t happen. So we’re going to have to go back and I think that’s acknowledged by each of the jurisdictions and our state Reps as well, go back and look at that again, and kind of clean it up and make it workable for truly, to really make it affordable, for building affordable housing, and to get people engaged. So we’ll, we’ll see how that all goes. But we’re really pleased to have gotten something in the legislation this year, which is, I think, changes the evacuation times from 24 to 24 and a half hours, and 900 units over the next 10 years.”