Independently Marathon

Sunlit playing fields with a running track and goals, the low brick buildings of Appleby Elementary School at right, and morning fog lying in the valley below wooded hills. — Morning over the fields at Appleby Elementary, Marathon. Photograph by Bill Alexy.

The Marathon Fiscal Record · A Fiscal Condition Report

A community’s schools, by the numbers.

How Marathon Central School District arrived at Moderate Fiscal Stress — and what the public record actually says about how it got here. Drawn entirely from documents already posted by the NYS Comptroller, the district itself, and the State Education Department. No Freedom of Information request required.

By The Editor · April 23, 2026

Read the report

Early light through a willow beside a wooden shed; a green wheelbarrow and a small wagon stand loaded with split firewood. — Firewood in the morning light. Photograph by Bill Alexy

Letters

A letter, not a comment section.

Residents write in by name. Every letter is held at least three days, read by a person, and published in a weekly batch.

Write a letter

Three-panel strip. Top left: a girl with glasses and striped overalls sits on a small stool, chin in hand, while a grinning boy points at her and says “Wait ’til you see my Halloween costume this year — pure evil!” She answers, “I think I’m going as an existential threat…” Top right, the girl shrugs: “Plague, fuel shortages, civil unrest — I can’t make up my mind.” Bottom, a large panel: the girl asks “What about you?” and the boy, now wearing a big orange circus peanut costume, jerks a thumb at himself: “Circus peanut.” — Halloween Costume, by Based Comic. © 2026 Based Comic. Reprinted with permission.

The Funnies

The Sunday page, every week.

Comic strips and cartoons, from a quick laugh to a point of view. Arguments over insults, always.

Read this week’s strips

The gilded dome of the Cortland County Courthouse, topped by a statue of Justice, with a large American flag hung across its columns; evergreens in the foreground. — The dome of the Cortland County Courthouse. Photograph by Bill Alexy

The Exchange

Other voices in town.

What other local outlets are publishing about Marathon, including those that see it differently.

Marathon Neighborhood NewsThe edition of October 29, 2026
Marathon Neighborhood NewsThe edition of October 22, 2026
Marathon Neighborhood NewsThe edition of October 15, 2026

The full Exchange

Bare trees and brush along a river in heavy fog, the low sun a pale disc and a church steeple faint in the mist. — A winter morning on the Tioughnioga River, Marathon. Photograph by Bill Alexy

Public records first. Interpretation, labeled. Corrections, in public.

How this publication works

A red vintage fire tanker with a polished steel tank, “Marathon” lettered in yellow on its back, parked on gravel in evening light. — A vintage tanker, lettered for Marathon. Photograph by Bill Alexy

About

Made here, for here.

An independent community publication for Marathon, NY: sourced analysis, letters from residents, and links to the other voices covering the town.

“All people belong in a small town. They’re only guests in a big city.”
Walter Grunfeld, publisher and editor, The Marathon Independent

The name Independently Marathon echoes The Marathon Independent, the town’s own paper for more than a century, and tips its hat to Walter Grunfeld, who published and edited it from 1955 to 1987 from its office on Main Street. As a boy in the 1980s, Bill Alexy, who publishes this site, shoveled the sidewalk outside the Independent, and the post office’s next door.

It grew out of The Marathon Fiscal Record, an April 2026 analysis of the district’s finances, and keeps its rules: every figure sourced, every error corrected in public.

Standards and independence