Editorial | Revisit rowing club vote & public input
They came.
They sat.
They listened.
They waited.
For naught.
Without input from the Cape Coral Rowing Club, its members or supporters, Cape Coral City Council on Wednesday debated and then deadlocked on whether to allow the club to use Tropicana Park as its base of operations.
The 4-4 vote means the previously green-lighted arrangement with the club for which we, the taxpayers, invested $500,000 for a dock at the long-promised location, is now dead in the water.
It also means that the rowing club, a nonprofit that has trained hundreds of adults and youths in the sport of crew rowing here in the Cape since 2007, may have to dissolve.
Why?
Politics and policy.
First the politics.
While the club, which offers a youth program that has led to sports scholarships to schools including Stetson and MIT; adult learn-to-row classes, including free classes for veterans and active first responders; master classes and more, has enjoyed strong support, use of the city’s waterways, in general, has long had its controversies du jour.
From docks and manatees, boat slips and moorings, to lawsuits over the Chiquita Lock and concerns about the pollution of state waters, area residents have expressed a plethora of concerns, both legitimate and, well, not.
The proposed use of Tropicana Park by the rowing club has had its detractors since the city first released renderings showing a portion allocated for equipment storage and a large public dock from which the club could also launch its boats.
That opposition ramped up again as the lease agreement with the club came forward with Mayor John Gunter and Councilmember Laurie Lehmann among those saying nearby residents want the Cape Coral Rowing Club location changed to Crystal Lake Park where another rowing nonprofit, the Cape Coral Dragon Boat Club is — in theory, anyway — to be given space.
Both city parks are on the North Spreader, with Crystal Lake further north.
Council members voting no maintain that the location is not only better, but would be safer for the club and for other boaters using the spreader.
We, like the rowing club, call bushwa, and we call it loud.
Councilmember Rachel Kaduk asked the Cape Coral Police Department for numbers related to incidents involving the rowing club.
The answer she received?
Zero. None. Nada in nearly two decades.
Let us point out that council previously vetted the issues, including safety, and felt comfortable enough to put half a million dollars of our money into infrastructure at Tropicana Park specifically designed to allow rowers safe access to the yes, increasingly popular, waterway.
The safety argument simply does not hold water, especially taking into account that the new “safe” location from which the boats ostensibly could be launched has no dock, a waterfront with rip rap and mangroves and would require rowers to carry boats farther and then lower them to the water from a 12-15-foot drop.
Could these things be mitigated.
They can.
All it would take is time and money — our money for another dock and time the club does not have only to likely face the same “congestion” concerns as residential growth continues to boom along the north Cape waterfront.
Now the policy.
We would like to think public input matters to those we elect.
But private input apparently always matters more.
While members of council cited opposition emails and calls received, those who came to council to voice their views could not do so face to face before the vote.
That’s because council changed its meeting policy to literally put public comment last.
The board moved Citizen’s Input from the beginning of the meeting, before votes on “consent agenda” items -such as the vote on the lease agreement with the Cape Coral Rowing Club -to the tail end of the agenda right before Council Reports, because, well, council does need the last word.
The rowing club had no opportunity to present its petition to “Keep the Cape Coral Rowing Club at Tropicana Park” nor the 1,122 verified signatures it had quickly received after the same 4-4 deadlock at council’s last workshop showed the unexpected turn in the city’s position.
Minds were made up and the vote taken before supporters — forced to sit through more than two hours of meeting time — could speak.
With a 4-4 vote, one voice could have made a difference.
That voice was not given any opportunity to be heard.
We urge council to do two things:
Revisit the vote to enter into an agreement with the Cape Coral Rowing Club to allow the nonprofit to use Tropicana Park.
Rescind the policy that moved Citizens Input to the end of the meeting.
This vote is a good case in point:
It’s time to stop putting public input last.
Breeze editorial