Friday, November 20, 2009

It was perhaps fitting that a group of Marathon officials were in Tallahassee this week updating the governor's cabinet on the city's progress in a variety of key areas.

Fitting in the sense that the City of Marathon turned 10 years old this month, and a celebration to honor the historic vote will be held at the Community Park on Nov. 21.

Marathon was on the successful side of a wave of incorporation movements that swept through the Keys in the late '90s. Residents in Key Largo, Islamorada and the Lower Keys all staged similar efforts around that time. The Village of Islamorada was the only other community to join Marathon with a successful incorporation movement.

Incorporation movements have a rich history in the Keys, starting with the City of Key West in the 1800s. Key Colony Beach incorporated as a city in 1957 via a unanimous vote of the community's 11 registered voters. The tiny community of Layton incorporated in 1963, and in 1997 the Village of Islamorada was formed.

Marathon's successful incorporation vote in 1999 was not the first time the idea had been trotted out in front of the public.

According to local historian Dan Gallagher's book "Marathon 1906-1960," in 1950, W.A. (Pappy) Parrish first proposed the idea of Marathon incorporating, and went so far as to establish a temporary administrative system. That system included creating the position of mayor, which Parrish took on, and four city commissioners.

It wasn't until two years later that the idea actually went to a vote, where it was defeated 81-54. The suddenly defunct city commission held a mock funeral outside of the Reef Bar, where five miniature coffins were put on display.

Longtime Marathon resident and former city manager Mike Puto said talk of incorporation always carried on throughout the years.

"That's been out there for some time," Puto said of incorporation talk.

Small beginnings

The latest, and obviously most successful, movement started about 12 years ago, when a small group of locals began hashing out a game plan to put forward a proper incorporation campaign.

Part of that group was the city's current Vice Mayor Mike Cinque. Cinque, who felt so confident about the movement he had "Welcome to the Future City of Marathon," banners printed up, said he and others were fed up with county regulations that did not match up to the community's.

"The county wanted to go with the one size fits all [comprehensive plan]," Cinque said. "A lot of the stuff was really keeping us from growing."

So the group, which included other interested locals like Bill and Karen Wilkinson, Dick and Thea Ramsay, Karen Dennis, Allan Fletch, Dick Shutlz, Randy Mearns and Glenn Robinson, broke off into separate committees, each focused on a different issue. Some, like Mearns, handled investigating fire rescue services, while others, like Cinque, looked into information about building departments.

As all this was going on, one of the two Monroe County Commissioners whose district includes a portion of Marathon felt like he was being caught up in the middle.

"You can imagine the fervor of those who were pushing for the incorporation," said George Neugent, who is still on the BOCC. "Marathon was pushing through it at the time when I first came on the commission."

Part of that fervor was born out of what many in Marathon felt was unfair treatment from the county. In particular, residents were concerned a disproportionate amount of tax money was coming out of Marathon and being spent elsewhere.

"A lot of things weren't getting done in Marathon," Puto said.

Some, like Cinque, wanted the rules to better fit the community.

"We had people who wanted to upgrade the older buildings without having to bulldoze them and start all over again," Cinque said.

Just the fax

A political action committee -- dubbed Citizens Incorporate Marathon -- was formed, allowing donations to be solicited in order to fund the movement.

A slew of studies and surveys were taken in the year and a half leading up to the November 1999 incorporation vote. One such study, which cost about $4,000 according to Karen Wilkinson, took the pulse of the community to find out what locals wanted to focus on.

"The number one thing was parks," Wilkinson said. "The people wanted to have the money they contributed in taxes spent here instead of Key West and other places."

As information was gathered, meetings were called. There were detractors, of course. Another Political Action Committee called Citizens to Protect Marathon formed to stop the incorporation process.

The group ran several ads in local newspapers expressing concern with what they thought was a rush to incorporate.

Politicians from the mainland got involved as well, meeting with locals to get a feeling for what the town was going through. Then-state Sen. Daryl Jones came to town for a meeting, according to Wilkinson, and expressed concern that perhaps the town was not behind the incorporation movement. A litany of petitions supporting the movement were gathered and faxed to Jones' office.

"We started faxing them to Sen. Jones until he finally called us and said 'please stop,' " Wilkinson said.

The efforts culminated in an overwhelming Election Day victory, with 67 percent of the voters in favor of incorporation. Marathon wasn't alone in the incorporation fight that day. Residents in Key Largo staged a similar incorporation coup, but were overwhelmingly rejected at the polls.

Similar movements in the Lower Keys and Big Pine Key were also unsuccessful.

"The timing was just right," Puto said of the incorporation win in Marathon. "The people wanted control of their own destiny."

The aftermath

More than 20 people showed interest in running for the five-person council, although some dropped out before election day. That first board -- comprised of Bob Miller, John Bartus, Frank Greenman, Randy Mearns and Jon Johnson -- was eventually selected, and in front of it laid a world of challenges.

Some of those early city council decisions worked out for the best, including improvements made to Sombrero Beach and the Marathon Community Park.

Some decisions set a course for the city that would stretch far beyond a council member's term in office, such as the decision to take away the central wastewater project from the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority.

Still other decisions were admitted mistakes, such as taking control of the now-closed Boot Key drawbridge from the county.

As a whole, however, even Neugent said that it has worked out well for Marathon to incorporate.

"It turned out to be in the best interest of both the county and City of Marathon," Neugent said.

In the past 10 years the city has managed to establish itself as a financially sound entity, despite having to weather a damaging 2005 hurricane season.

"I'm not surprised with what we have accomplished," Cinque said.

There has already been some small chatter about Marathon potentially being in a good enough spot to possibly break away from the county-wide designation as an Area of Critical State Concern. Marathon Mayor Ginger Snead was in Tallahassee this week briefing state officials on the progress the city has already made toward its work plan list. Even she expressed surprise at how well the city was received.

Whether that reception will translate into something bigger is likely an issue that will be discussed at the 20th anniversary party.