Mayor 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.
The Emergency Operations Center has officially opened in Marathon.
Still said, “It was a wonderful Grand Opening ribbon cutting. The building is beautiful, and I think we are geared up and ready in the event of any emergency or disaster. That building is set up to run our county, basically, and dispatches there. I think all the major stakeholders in our community that would be responsible during an event and then recovery from event will be right there all together, so they’re not going to be separated out. So it’s going to be much more efficient when you’re in the same room together and making decisions together, you lose some information in translation when you’re having to talk to somebody in a different location. So it’s nice that everybody’s going to be together. They’re going to be there in a safe building. There are facilities inside there where your responders are able to eat, wash their clothes, take showers and sleep.”
It’s just in time for a potential tropical cyclone coming our way.
Still said, “Obviously, we’re going to be watching the weather. We’re going to be paying attention to what the National Weather Service down in Key West tells us. You have a lot of a lot of things that are posted on Facebook that you see on the news also, but absolutely the authority when it comes to this is that National Weather Service in Key West. Personally, I pay attention to them, and I know the city does as well. We listen to them for their advice on what potential weather may be coming our way, and then we plan accordingly. Right now, I think it looks like we’re going to have some wind and rain, probably not as much as the Lower Keys, but you never know. So in advance of that, I think we start hardening our facilities, our stuff, basically, make sure that everything is secured as far as anything that that can be impacted by wind, kind of like what you do at your house. I make sure that things are brought in, that things that may get blown around outside are brought inside or tied down. Things are trimmed to where you don’t have to worry about debris and things like that any more than you could possibly avoid. It’s just basically common sense, things, what would I do if I know that we have an event coming. How am I going to prepare to kind of make sure my facility, my building, is safe, my home is safe, and the things outside are safe.”
It’s also important to get information from reliable places and the EOC has a rumor control area.
Still said, “Rely on those credible sources, getting your information directly from the people who know, the people who that is their job, and that’s what I would urge everybody to do, is rely on the source of information that is the expert. Our Board of County Commissioners, if you go to their Facebook or their website, actually scroll all the way down to the bottom and you’ll see some links there that will link you to some of those sources of information. You can also sign up for alert Monroe there, and basically you can get text messages about weather alerts and things that are happening. That is a valuable source of information. You can link to the National Weather Service, the hurricane center, and you can see all of that stuff straight from the source. I would urge everybody to bookmark those pages. Sign up for the alert Monroe, our county, does an excellent, excellent job of letting its citizens know what’s happening. So sign up for that. Now is the perfect time to do it. Get that stuff done now.”
The final budget for the city of Marathon will be tonight.
Still said, “We have our final budget meeting that’s tonight at 5:05. That’s an unusual time. Normally, our meeting started around 5:30 but we are at 5:05 this evening at city hall here in Marathon. It is open to the public. You are able to make comments if you come there’s a comment card that will be on a table before you come into council chambers, you would need to fill that out and turn it into our clerk and then you would be able to make comments, but it would also be recorded or live streamed. So you have a couple different options if you want to see what’s happening with that. But we will be setting our final operating budget for the fiscal year, 2024, 2025 along with the millage rate. As of right now, going into tonight, it looks like we are looking at a 0% tax increase for our residents. So I don’t anticipate that changing, but you never know until we get there. That is a bonus. I try to tell everybody that everybody on city council, we live here, we own property here. So what impacts you impacts us also. Sometimes you might not think that, but it does, and we always try to fight for our community and to set our budget to where we maintain a level of service that our residents deserve, also in these tough financial times, not costing more money than we should.”
Homecoming will be this weekend at Marathon High School.
Still said, “I think the homecoming parade, hopefully the weather doesn’t impact it. It’s supposed to be on Thursday, so hopefully the kids will be able to enjoy that. This week, I think they had some themes that they were dressing up. So yesterday, if you saw some Minnie Mouse costumes, that’s going to be why. They’re having an awesome theme. The kids are having a great time with that from pictures that I’ve seen, but I come out and support these kids for homecoming football game. Hopefully, the weather won’t impact that, but we’re looking forward to seeing another great game.”
Park and Rec continues to work hard for the city.
Still said, “They do so many things, it’s hard to list them all. You could go to their Facebook page and it lists all the events that they’re doing. There are a lot of youth sports that are coming up, sign ups and things like that. So I would just urge you to go to that. They have a little something for everybody. They have fitness court, they have Zumba, and then, of course, the youth sports. They do a lot of amazing things there. There’s festivals that are coming up this fall. The Garden Club has the holiday bazaar that’s coming up later in November. Business professional women have their annual sip and shop event, where they have vendors come to that as well. So a lot of fun things going into the holidays.”