UEP vote may have sealed city’s fate
To the editor:
I got a double sinking feeling when the UEP got voted down. First,the council members have been working on this for some time,and it came down to this one vote that they didn’t agree! They had plenty of time to get the best possible bids and set plans out to say this is what our homework tells us is the best affordable way to go forward. That didn’t happen!
At this point in time, they should have had their ducks in a row. After all the time they had, it tells me they as a council did not do their job as a whole.
My second sinking feeling is that Cape Coral without a UEP (not this package), we have decided our fate is a no-growth, behind-the-times community. Utilities are not an extravagant product, it is a basic necessity to encourage growth. Without growth, we will become even more stagnant than we are now. We need to upgrade our infrastructure to have an even chance with other Florida areas that have basic utilities. There is going to be an influx of baby boomers retiring somewhere, but not in Cape Coral. Who would come to our area where some resident’s utility bills will triple in time and other residents are subject to the possibility of unsafe water in the north due to the lack of safe drinking water? We need the assurance of safe water to progress.
Our council needs to operate as a council, to work as a unit when they present any issue to the residents. They have examine all angles possible, so they are sure they agree it’s best for all the people they represent.
We need to put Cape Coral residents back to work,to make money, to spend money. The domino effect can work to the positive as well the negative. We are living the negative affect now everyday. I want to experience the positive affect and the UEP is the beginning (but not in the present form). Three to five years from now it will not be any cheaper, get the basic cost etched in stone now.
Sharon Gilbert
NE Cape Coral