The Marathon City Council convened on Tuesday, May 11, with a relatively light agenda, although several inspiring moments â not uncommon in small city council meetings â highlighted the evening.
Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay set the tone early by recognizing and introducing a âspecial guest,â Canine Coral, one of the departmentâs drug-sniffing dogs, who entertained those on hand with some brief scurrying and sniffing throughout the audience.
Later, Mayor Luis Gonzalez introduced 6-year-old Landry Sayer, a Stanley Switlick kindergartner whoâd asked to address the city council with a short video, because âshe was trying to make a difference,â as Gonzalez explained. What followed was a short, well-produced video on how this little âtrash activist,â who walked her dog every night while also picking up trash, wanted to help clean up Marathon. After the video, Gonzalez pledged to arrange a city-wide cleanup event in the fall, based on
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis moved to suspend all remaining COVID-19 restrictions imposed by communities across the state, signing into law on Monday freshly passed legislation giving him sweeping powers to invalidate local emergency measures put in place during the pandemic â including mask mandates, limitations on business operations and the shuttering of schools.
âWe donât know whatâs going to happen in the future,â DeSantis said Monday, âbut I think this creates a structure thatâs going to be a little bit more respectful, I think, of peopleâs businesses jobs, schools and personal freedom.â
He said he would sign executive order to begin implementing some of the provisions of the new law, which doesnât go into effect until July 1.
Monroe County Commissioner Mike Forster wants the Florida Keys cities and Ocean Reef to have more input and be better informed when it comes to the county’s emergency management response
The Marathon City Council agreed to create a hybrid model for code enforcement and continued the trash receptacle ordinance to next month, while approving the Coco Plum bridge projects and the kayak ramp on Grassy Key to move forward this month. Rotary Park will receive a facelift as well.
The council agreed to a hybrid model for code enforcement in which residents have the option to choose between a code board made up of their neighbors and friends or an impartial, law school-trained special magistrate. The vote was split, with John Bartus, Mayor Luis Gonzalez and Dan Zieg in favor of the hybrid model. Zieg said 80% to 90% of cases are resolved before ever coming to the magistrate. Bartus said the cityâs incorporation movement two decades ago had a code board comprised of citizens among its most desired goals, and a hybrid system is the âbest of both worlds.â