A seventh challenger entered the Marathon City Council race this month, with the addition of executive consultant Greg Robinson.
A four-year resident of the city, Robinson told the Weekly he splits time between the Keys and Jacksonville, where his son attends the University of North Florida. He said noticing “general inefficiencies” in the town he and his wife have chosen as their forever home drove him to enter the 2025 election.
“My general background is in being a fixer, an executive consultant,” he said, referencing former stints aiding the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Connecticut Department of Correction streamline budgets of more than $500 million
Robinson acknowledged that while Marathon has made a larger investment in affordable housing than surrounding keys, he feels there is more to be done, potentially in the form of housing subsidies for down payment assistance or rental rate relief.
His website, gregformarathon.com, describes a variety of possible public-facing digital dashboards to track items like the progress of workforce housing projects. A proposed “digital transparency dashboard” would provide an “online hub for city information,” allowing residents to easily see where budgeted tax dollars are spent, timelines and updates on infrastructure projects, public safety metrics and complaint and request tracking.
“I did a review of the past 18 months of meeting minutes from the city council, and looking at budgets,” he said. “Certain areas of spending and decision-making don’t necessarily come across as entirely data-driven, which is a value I know I can add. My doctorate is in policy analysis and econometrics, so I know how to dig and do this, but if you don’t live and breathe this, just trying to understand basic decision-making on the part of the city might not make sense.”
A separate “progressive vacation rental fee proposal” on Robinson’s website would alter current rates to increase or decrease rental fees based on a home’s square footage and waterfront access, framed in relation to a home’s impact on Marathon’s infrastructure and the complexity of required inspections.
“From infrastructure-related issues to workforce housing and tourist impact mitigation, there are just certain areas that I don’t know that we’ve been entirely optimized around,” he said. “I see running and being a part of city council as just one way that I can contribute to the community – hopefully my services and talents would fit right in.”
According to Supervisor of Elections Sherri Hodies’ website, all seven candidates have qualified for the 2025 city council race. The field includes incumbents Lynn Landry, Jeff Smith and Robyn Still, along with Debbie Struyf, Gerrit Hale and David Perry.
A candidate forum sponsored by the Marathon Weekly and Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce is set for Wednesday, Oct. 1 in the BOCC chambers of the Marathon Government Center. The meeting will be broadcast live and available on demand. Additional candidate questions will be printed in the Marathon Weekly in the weeks preceding the Nov. 4 election.
