Marathon Diary: Sliding into Chaos

Exhibit A: Democracy takes a back seat in the Middle Keys

The Marathon City Council, after some promises about making careful considerations, wasted no time in appointing former councilman John Bartus to the seat recently and abruptly vacated by Ginger Snead. Snead, to the shock of many, had suddenly resigned citing “rumors.” It’s never been clear what that meant.

While Bartus had served on the council and even been mayor, his last run at office didn’t work out so well. He came in fourth, trailing Mike Cinque, Rich Keating, and Don Vasil in 2009. In other words, the council appointed someone who the voters had soundly rejected in an actual election. Bartus had been president of the Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce and was nominated to the council and promoted by Councilman Chris Bull, also closely connected with the chamber. The rest of the council went along rather meekly.

In another setback for democracy in the Middle Keys, the committee assigned the task of reviewing Marathon’s charter has recommended that elections be scheduled for March instead of November. The voters had approved by a 58 percent margin moving the elections to November from March but now the charter review committee recommends the city revert to its original schedule.

It’s an odd recommendation when considering the election results in two recent instances. In the last March election, a total of 3,325 ballots were cast in the race for city council. However, in 2012, 8,765 votes were cast for the same race. The logic of the charter review commission is that the race for council gets lost among all the other ones, including that for president of the United States. The facts show the opposite. So what is the committee’s real agenda?

Exhibit B: Cronyism in Marathon

A few years ago Councilwoman Marilyn Tempest appointed Louis Gonzales to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. Not a peep was heard from the council or the local media. It’s odd because Gonzalez Brothers Landscaping, Inc. has the contract for landscaping at, surprise, Sombrero Beach and other city sites.

Then, last week the council – again without so much as a how-do-you-do — approved a fourth amendment to the contract between the city and Gonzalez for landscaping and facilities maintenance services to the fire stations, oceanfront, and Jesse Hobbs parks for a contract increase of $ 57,600.00 annually for a revised total contract amount of $ 488,000.00.

In the city’s defense, Gonzalez was the only company that responded to bid solicitations. According to Community Services Director Debra London,

“They (Gonzalez) are the only landscaping firm that responded to the City solicitation that opened back on 6.22.07 for maintenance of the City’s Parks and Beaches. All amendments to their contract have gone before Council for approval.

“In addition, we did another trades solicitation hoping to bring on board other landscaping firms that opened on December 19, 2012, and they (Gonzalez) were the only respondent for landscaping.”

That said, not only is Gonzalez on the Parks and Rec committee but he, for all practical purposes, runs it. Anyone who has attended one of their meetings can see this easily. Recently his company re-did all the planting at the front of Sombrero Beach and the result has been less than stellar.

It’s fair to wonder if someone running the city’s Parks and Recreation committee should also be doing the city’s work but this is the way that Marathon does business these days.

Exhibit C: Love/Hate relationship with tourists

Not a week after the city so proudly put on its very profitable seafood festival, selling a reported 160 kegs of beer — a festival record — 75 cases of wine and champagne, and 4,080 cans of soda along with more than 12,431 pounds of fresh seafood, thanks in part to a large and disputed grant from the Tourist Development Council, the city did its best to undercut its push for more tourism.

How? By adding piles of sand at Sombrero Beach during one of the busiest weeks of tourist season. As spring breakers watched in frustration, a front loader and an ATV raced up and down the beach, moving sand from an enormous pile down to the opposite end onto a point of coral rock.

A friend who was at the beach on one of those beach “re-nourishing” days (as they love to call it) reported that a young French girl almost had a foot amputated by the front loader as it raced back and forth. This friend had guests from out of town and the visitors weren’t the least bit pleased by the loud, stinky machinery during the two hours they spent at the beach.

It’s not clear why Marathon didn’t wait until, say, June to do this work but, then, that’s the way that Marathon seems to do things.

Exhibit D: Hate the sin and the sinner?

One of the more surreal events in the annals of city councildom is the proposal by newly elected councilman Mark Senmartin for a “morality” clause for appointments to city boards and commissions. His proposal stems from arrest of Code Compliance Board member Alun Stephen Pearson who was arrested for allegedly forging signatures to obtain a duplicate title for a boat belonging to a 70-year-old Tavares man with dementia. It was his third arrest since 2005. This proposal had nothing to do with the arrest of the city’s finance director Peter Rosasco for battery.

“We need to set up some kind of a morality clause. The more I get into this job, I’m actually surprised we don’t have something like this in place,” Senmartin said.

Senmartin’s proposal should raise eyebrows (which it didn’t, by the way) because he flagrantly violated Marathon’s city code and then lied about it as reported in these pages  https://keywestthenewspaper.com//article/shame-on-marathon/ in October of last year. The Florida Keys Keynoter went on to endorse Senmartin after the issue became public, justifying doing so by saying that “everyone does it [violates city codes].” No morality problems there we presume.

Meanwhile, the city wrangles over the design for a new city hall, wasting half a million dollars in the process, has fired its city lawyer without revealing why. (Councilman Bull merely said that it was time for a change), prepares to do battle – again – with the Florida Department of Transportation, and girds itself for a behind the scenes battle over who the new city manager might be.

So much of what the city does now seems pre-decided, whether it’s firing the city manager, appointing an interim city manager, or adding prayer to its sessions. But that’s Florida government in the sunshine. Especially in Marathon, a city that some bloggers now refer to as Moronathan.