The Lee County Republican Party Executive Committee is expected to vote next month on a resolution that would “condemn profiteering by the Cape Coral City Council” and withhold support for the re-election of council members who voted in favor of stipends that nearly double their remuneration from the city.

Comparing the actions to those taken at the state and federal level by politicians like “President Joe Biden and Sen. Bob” Melendez who abuse “their positions of public trust to obtain financial gain for themselves and their families,” the resolution to be voted on Jan. 16 states “that no funding, resources, or support shall come from the Republican Party of Lee County to Mayor John Gunter or Council members Bill Steinke, Dan Sheppard, Tom Hayden, or Keith Long for their reelection campaigns in 2024 or 2026,” nor will their names be included in Lee GOP literature or advertising unless Council votes to reverse or repeal the resolution that granted them “a substantial pay raise, described as a ‘stipend,’ of $5,000 per month for the Mayor and $3,300 per month per City Council member.”

The stipends are in addition to voter-approved salaries paid to members of the elected board. According to the most recent figures posted to the city’s website, the mayor’s post is paid approximately $46,604 per year. Council members are paid approximately $40,620 per year.

The resolution exempts Councilmember Robert Welsh, who voted nay on the enabling resolutions included among the city’s consent agenda items, but includes Sheppard who the resolution describes as ‘Conveniently absent during the consent item vote.”

The resolution states there was no justification for city council’s elimination of the unpaid Community Redevelopment Agency governing board only to say shortly after that the stipend, in part, was to compensate “council members for the added duties they voluntarily took upon themselves to take over the work previously handled by the all-volunteer five-member citizens’ advisory board.”

LeeGOP Vice Chair Tara Jenner said the perception is that the council is doing an end run around the city’s charter, which requires voter approval for any increase in council compensation other than approved cost-of-living increases.

“There is apparent indication from members of the Republican Party as well as a number of Democrats I’ve spoken with that have indicated that this is coming across as an effort by city council to circumvent the voters’ rights to decide the compensation for the council and the mayor, because they are calling it a stipend,” Jenner said, adding that assuming duties previously performed by unpaid volunteers does not entitle council to a raise.

“I think it is self-serving — now we’re going to pay for eight people to do the job five people were doing for free before,” she said.

The thought process behind the resolution is that these types of actions should be stopped in their tracks.

“It’s like mold on bread,” she said. “It goes from one slice to the next and, if you get away with it, others think so too. Kind of like Colorado and Trump on the ballot.”

To pass and become an official position of the LeeGOP, the resolution would need a 2/3 vote at the Jan. 16 meeting.

In full, the resolution states:

Resolved, That no literature from the Republican Party of Lee County advertising Republican candidates shall include the names of Mayor John Gunter or Council members Bill Steinke, Dan Sheppard, Tom Hayden, or Keith Long, during the election years of 2024 and 2026, unless otherwise required by law or the RPOF Constitution or the County Model Constitution or until Resolution 351-23 is reversed or repealed.