City manager performance ratings
To the editor:
In last week’s Breeze, there was an article about the results of the city manager’s performance as voted on by the mayor and the seven district council members in ten different performance areas. The overall rating was 3.9 out of 5 points. The mayor gave him an overall rating of 4.3 and the District 1 member gave him an overall rating of 4.0. After next month’s general election, these two individuals will not be around.
Council member of District 5 gave him a perfect score of 5 out of 5 which tells me he is either infatuated with the city
manager or he didn’t put much thought into it. Since I have a low opinion of the city manager’s performance, I will not vote for the incumbent of District 5 again.
Also in last week’s Breeze, it asked the eight candidates running for the four city council positions to rate the city manager’s performance. Four did not give a rating at all, but the other four gave an average of 2.5, so they are not particularly enamored with his work. The city manager makes about $350,000 a year. The current board wanted to give him a raise as a result of his overall rating, but he asked for a lump sum payment of about $11,400 in lieu of the raise. Maybe he knows what the future board thinks of him.
I believe the city manager should get low marks for the redeveloped Jaycee Park. The elevation of the park was raised by about 3 feet in order to protect the new facilities at the park at the expense of the lower-lying neighborhood around it. The new bandshell has been used only once that I know of, and the building intended as the bar/restaurant has not been opened at all. No private entity wants to risk investing in this business. Also, the city recently disallowed fishing at the park which once was a popular fishing spot.
The city manager has done a terrible job with the Bimini East project by essentially giving away Four Freedoms Park to a private developer for nothing and selling the other 22 acres of land at less than half what the city paid for it only a couple of years ago. How can he justify this proposed agreement? I am not in favor of the city involved in these public/private partnerships (PPPs) anyway. He is also the executive director of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) which recommended this course of action. He should fire himself as executive director and disband the CRA for being an utter failure to the citizens of Cape Coral!
The city manager wants to have another PPP at the Yacht Club area and bring in a hotel. He is pro-developer and does not have the citizens of Cape Coral in mind. I don’t think the citizens of Cape Coral want the city participating in another PPP. They want a neighborhood park as indicated by the opinion poll in last week’s Breeze. Give them what they want: a rebuilt Boathouse restaurant, a replacement pier, a relocated boat launch and a new marina; not a hotel, or resort-style pool and definitely not a four-story parking garage.
Finally, since he became the city manager three years ago, the city’s budget has gone up 49%, from $967 million to $1.442 billion! This alone should give him a poor rating.
Ken Kendrick
Cape Coral