Vice-Mayor Senmartin, Coldiron
grasp City Council brass ring
BY TERRY SCHMIDA
Marathon residents today have a new face on their City Council.
When the dust settled in Tuesday’s municipal election, political neophyte Michelle Coldiron emerged victorious over a slate of other candidates for the $18,000 per year, three-year-term position.
Voters also returned Vice-Mayor Mark Senmartin to the job, for a second term.
Coldiron is a manager of Global Health Connection, which sells medical equipment. Her background includes stints as a child advocate coordinator for the Florida Guardian ad Litem Program, and as a Marathon code enforcement board member.
“I’m truly humbled to have won,” Coldiron said. “And I really enjoyed going door-to-door during my campaign and meeting so many people in this town. Marathon is a small place, and you think you know everyone here, until you venture out to knock on doors. I want all our residents to know that I’ll always be available and accessible to them.”
Coldiron, who is married with a 29-year-old daughter, ran her campaign on a platform of quality of life issues, and said that her priority will be making Marathon “the best place to live and raise a family.”
“I want my daughter and her generation to be able to continue living here,” Coldiron said. “Obviously we’re going to have to work on the workforce housing issues, but I’m confident we’re going to be able to come up with something. I’d also like to see us fill the grant-writer position that we have available, so that we can find sources of revenue, other than taxpayer dollars, to work on things like building a boat ramp at the Quay, and keeping our parks nice.”
Senmartin, who is the owner/operator of Cash Flow Jewelry, Pawn, Guns and Ammo, was the clear favorite of the evening, winning 23-plus percent of the vote, which was divided between five candidates for the two council spots up for grabs.
Coldiron won just slightly less than 21 percent.
“It feels great to win,” Senmartin said. “It’s very touching to know that many people really do pay attention to, and approve of what we’re doing.”
Senmartin, too, identified workforce housing as the biggest issue facing Marathon.
“We really do have to alleviate that situation,” he said. “I think it’s a priority for everyone now. We also will have to make some improvements to our sewer system. And I think we need to keep improving our transparency in government. The last council did a good job with that, and I hope the next one does even better.”
Other names on the ballot included former mayor Dick Ramsay, Nick Antonelli, and Trish Hintze.
The final tally on the evening was Senmartin, 888 votes; Coldiron, 781; Ramsay, 712; Hintze, 546; and Antonelli, 436.
Voter turnout was a meager 33 percent, according to the office of Monroe County Supervisor of Elections Joyce Griffin
Nearly 60 percent of voters turned down an ballot initiative that would have enacted an ordinance to ban the burning of trash and yard waste on residential property.
At previous City Council meetings where the subject was discussed, public comment had been overwhelmingly against the practice, though many, including Senmartin, questioned the wording of the proposed ordinance, which he described as being “horribly written.”
Up in the air today, is the question of who will fill the positions of mayor being vacated by Chris Bull, who is leaving to run a sports club in North Carolina, with one year left in his term. The announcement of his departure was not made in time to get the question on Tuesday’s ballot.
Still serving terms on the council are members Bill Kelly, Richard Keating, and Dan Zieg.

 

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