Margate City Commission · Seat 1
Twenty-six years in law enforcement — military, municipal, and federal. Now asking to serve the city he lives in.
Army MP›Kansas City PD›Federal Service
Election Day · Tuesday, November 7, 2028
Michael Marquez spent twenty-six years enforcing the law in three different systems — military, municipal, and federal.
Military Police Officer
Officer, then Detective
Senior Safety and Health Compliance Officer, U.S. Department of Labor / OSHA — retired
Three systems, one habit: read the rule, apply it the same way every time, and be able to explain the decision afterward. That is the standard he intends to bring to the commission.
Michael Marquez is a decorated combat veteran, a former law-enforcement officer, and a retired federal safety and health professional. Across three careers the throughline has been the same — service, leadership, and protecting other people.
Out of high school he joined the United States Army Military Police Corps. Assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he deployed to Saudi Arabia and Iraq in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He was later stationed in Panama and selected for a protection detail — the Department of Defense's counterpart to the Secret Service — helping guard General George A. Joulwan, then Commander in Chief of U.S. Southern Command. Carrying an official government passport, he traveled throughout Central and South America keeping the general and his staff secure, during the years Joulwan also led the U.S. military's counter-drug mission. He finished his enlistment through the Military Police Investigations School and a posting to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
After five years in uniform he joined the Kansas City Police Department, where he earned the COMBAT Community Policing Award, served as a Field Training Officer — personally training five recruits — and rose to Detective.
He closed his career in federal service, spending eleven years as a Senior Safety and Health Compliance Officer with the U.S. Department of Labor's OSHA — protecting workers and holding workplaces to the law — before retiring.
Margate should not be packed with apartments. New development has to match what the city can actually carry — the roads, the schools, the water, the services people already depend on — and it has to be decided with the residents, not around them. Too often people find out about a project only after the deal is done. The public deserves a straight answer, and a real voice, before a vote — not after one.
He has done this job. He knows what officers need to do it well, and he knows what it feels like on the other side of the encounter. Both matter. Public safety is a question of staffing, training, and standards applied consistently — not a subject to be shouted about at election time and forgotten in between.
Residents should be able to find out how a decision got made and where the money went, without filing a request or decoding a budget document. If something cannot be explained to a resident in plain language, that is usually a sign the explanation is the problem.
The city needs leaders who have actually served the people and the nation. I have spent my career doing that. I want to use that experience to make a lasting difference in Margate.
Michael Marquez
To learn more about Michael, or to join the effort, write to him directly. He reads every message himself.