Awards and service recognitions highlighted an otherwise-brief first Marathon City Council session of 2025 on Jan. 14.
A Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service proclamation presented to Rev. Larry White of St. Paul AME Church opened the evening, followed by recognition of Special Olympics weightlifters Cindy Augustin and Alex Chavala. The Marathon High School duo secured state championship medals in November after posting personal-best lifts at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, qualifying them for consideration as participants in the June 2026 Special Olympics national meet in Minnesota.
Fire chief James Muro recognized 10-year Marathon Fire Rescue veteran Chris Cameron, who began volunteering with the department in 2009 before securing a full-time position in 2014. In addition to serving as the chair of the firefighters pension board, Cameron leads the department’s cadet program, conducting early-morning sessions with Marathon High School students to develop their skills, drive recruitment and expose them to the teamwork and realities of work as a first responder.
“Chris is a spectacular mix of interesting pieces,” Muro said, touting Cameron’s breadth and depth of skills and historical knowledge offered to the department. “We’re a customer service business and human business, and he’s an indelible piece of that.”
Muro also recognized 20-year veteran Capt. Joe Forcine, calling him “one of the most impressive people I’ve had a chance to work with in my entire career.”
Beginning as a firefighter/EMT in 1994, Forcine has amassed 23 Phoenix awards, given to a first responder when a patient makes a full recovery from a cardiac arrest or near cardiac arrest event and is released from a hospital.
“Joe is a lead instructor and the designer of our system for EMT training and our paramedic program,” Muro said. “Agencies throughout the county come to our city to become paramedics and EMTs, and that’s something that makes us very proud.
“An understatement of service is saying that Joe is a great employee – he’s an exceptional employee.”
Kayak launch install delayed
Residents of the 109th and 110th Street neighborhoods will need to wait longer for a promised install of a neighborhood kayak launch, pledged by the council after a controversial right-of-way abandonment removed access to an existing boat ramp last year.
In July 2024, area residents protested the abandonment of the ramp two months earlier. Though city staff told the council in May that the ramp was already privately owned and excluded from the area to be abandoned, diagrams showing the proposed abandonment appeared to include the ramp as part of the abandoned property. Council members later acknowledged the confusion in July, promising to construct a safer kayak launch on the remaining city property at a projected cost of $250,000.
Following Tuesday’s discussion, that install will now wait until Marathon can move forward with a master plan of simultaneously developing several street-end “pocket parks” throughout the city at a lower per-park cost. Council members agreed to prioritize the 109th Street park in future developments.
“I don’t want to jump the gun on this one and do something we might regret,” said Mayor Lynn Landry. “But I would like to see a lot of these street ends developed into something like pocket parks for these neighborhoods so a lot of the dry-lot homes would have access to the water.”
“I don’t look at 109th (Street) as giving anything back – I think it’s a replacement of what was there, and I want us to honor our word on that,” added Vice Mayor Jeff Smith. “I just don’t want to rush spending $250,000 on something when I can get some economies of scale.”
United Way backs splash pad, skate park
Two donations from United Way of Collier and the Keys, via anonymous donors, will bolster Marathon’s upcoming skate park rebuild and pave the way for installation of a new splash pad at Marathon Community Park.
UWCK Keys area president Leah Stockton announced both donations – $500,000 for a splash pad and $75,000 toward skate park rebuild costs – Tuesday evening.
“In a place where it’s over 100 degrees most of the year, having options for young people to get out and enjoy the outdoors is so important,” she said. “We want (the park and splash pad) to be a place for the community to come together and for everyone in Marathon to enjoy them.”
Meeting date change: In consideration of Florida Keys Day at the state Capitol on March 13, the March 11 Marathon City Council meeting will be postponed to the previous council workshop date of Tuesday, March 25 at 5:30 p.m. There will be no workshop meeting in March.
