Town hall meeting generated a lot of interest from the public
To the editor:
A recent town hall meeting held by Councilmember Laurie Lehmann at Camelot Park generated the following concerns about city operations. I am glad I attended this meeting and encourage others to attend the future meetings as well.
1: There were complaints of large trucks/semis that are parking on city streets. The question was raised that if residents could not store boats in their yards why are semi trucks allowed to park along public streets, rights of way, and on vacant parcels?
2: Three separate residents (out of about 30 attendees) voiced concerns that when they called code enforcement to register a complaint, they were told it was a police matter. The resident then goes back and forth between the police and the code compliance personnel. Ultimately in all three cases after much documentation and many phone calls, code compliance performed their duties. There needs to be more accountability with the code enforcement division. If this has happened to you, please contact your council member.
3: All departments need to be reviewed for efficiency. This means reports detailing goals, projects in place with timelines and progress reports for outstanding projects. Project closeouts need to be produced showing inefficiencies that could be used in developing better management of future projects, i.e. lessons learned.
4: Each department should report staff vacancies, how they are going to be filled along with a timeline for the hiring and training of this staff. There needs to be a written transition policy for filling vacancies due to retirement and not an expectation that the assistant will be performing two jobs while the city works on filling the position. It should not be an expectation that the assistant will become the first line manager unless this person can be qualified to handle the job. Vacancies lead to inefficiencies and can no longer be an acceptable response as to why projects or services are not handled in a timely manner.
5: Water tower/storage facilities in the Fever Creek Preserve need to be reviewed as to placement and if possible create more setback from existing homes. Local residents were concerned about having to look at 40-foot towers that would be very close to their yards and a decline in property values.
6: Citizens would like to see more water sampling for what our canal water contains. Not just checking for salinity. Questions were asked about whether the fish caught in the canals were edible or contaminated. Results should be posted along with advisories about fish contamination.
7: There were discussion about potable water shortages and concern that car washes are still being constructed if there needs to be a reduction in city water consumption.
8: Impact fees for development need to be reviewed and see that they are set to cover the additional costs for infrastructure and services that are required to serve these added residences and facilities.
9: Stop the persecution of the three fishermen that brought a lawsuit to prevent the removal of the Chiquita lock. Persecuting these individuals stifles the ability of the average citizen to question their governance. The persecution of these individuals centers on the concept of a frivolous lawsuit which wasn’t so frivolous that they successfully won on the merits in a prior trial. It was mentioned that the mayor should have to pay the costs associated with the arrest and removal of a citizen in an open meeting who was expressing their right to challenge the board through freedom of speech.
10: The citizen input committees need to be re-established and timeline produced for the creation of these committees.
11: A review is needed to address the public land swap for access to Redfish Point and the wetlands south of Rotary Park. It was mentioned that these are wetlands and should not be developed. Citizen input needs to be heard and the decision validated by the citizens if there is a land swap of public property to allow this development.
12: There needs to be an investigation regarding the creation of Coviello Park and the resulting flooding of homes and foundation damage caused by creating the park. There needs to be accountability to the citizens damaged by this development as well as an action plan to stop the flooding caused by the creation of the park.
13: There were issues raised by the citizens in the neighborhood of Chiquita and Savona regarding the change in zoning. It was originally zoned commercial and the expectation was restaurants and offices. The change resulted in a large storage facility which is problematic to the neighborhood.
Let’s see what happens.
J. Caplin
Cape Coral