The Greater Pine Island Civic Association is waiting to hear back from the Board of Lee County Commissioners to see if a straw poll will be held next year in regards to the communities input of incorporation.

The Greater Pine Island Civic Association filed a Letter of Intent to incorporate on Oct. 3, 2019. With that letter, the association began discussions, as well as educating the public about incorporating, including both the pros and cons in October. The board produced a final draft of the incorporation charter during October and November.

The drafted charter states that the Villages of Pine Island would comprise of Matlacha Isles, Matlacha, St. James City, Pine Island Center, Pineland and Bokeelia. The charter states that the incorporation of the Villages of the Pine Island area “will serve to preserve and protect the character, natural resources, and quality of life of the community and to maintain the vision established by the Pine Island Community Plan as adopted by the Lee County Commission on January 2002, and as amended March 2016 with an effective date of April 2016.”

Greater Pine Island Civic Association Board member Helen Fox said the board was formed in 1957 to create what is known as the Pine Island Plan to have smart development, rather than over-the-top development, to keep the semi-rural life that everyone enjoys in the Greater Pine Island community.

“As a board we are in favor of incorporation, so we are trying to be instrumental in bringing the vote to the greater Pine Island community. Every registered voter would be able to say yes, or no, on whether they wanted to incorporate,” Fox said.

Since the discussions began about incorporation it has been a controversial issue.

Fox said in order to bring incorporation before the registered voters, they have to do a straw poll, a non-binding resolution, on the November 2020 ballot. She said they are taking the necessary steps so the question would be presented to the voters on whether or not to incorporate.

Fox said if the results of the straw poll in November 2020 come out as a large percent in favor of the incorporation, then the islands representative in the state Legislature,will be encouraged to introduce a bill to the floor of the House of Representatives. If passed, it will go before the Senate. If the Senate passes it, it will move to the governor.

She said if the governor OKs it, incorporation will go to vote. This is all anticipated to take place January through March 2021.

“There are two votes. The first one being a non-binding resolution to take the temperature of the community. The second vote is to incorporate,” Fox said.

The general election to vote on incorporation would take place in 2022.

According to the Greater Pine Island Civic Association, the charter becomes final when the legislatures approve the bill to incorporate and the governor signs it into law. The charter goes into effect when the voters approve the incorporation.

If voters approve the incorporation, elections to vote for members of a governing council will take place in January through March 2023. The charter states that there will be seven village council members, five elected in a non-partisan election, and two at large. The council will also appoint a village manager. There will also be a village attorney and clerk, as well as a mayor and vice mayor.

She said there have been several straw polls done in the past, but the board was not satisfied with the way that they were done. In 2017, a straw vote was done through a postcard survey. Although the survey went out to more than 7,000 registered voters, only 2,500 post cards were returned. Out of those returns 80 percent were in favor of doing more research into the idea of incorporation.

“That’s why we figured the way to do this is to have a formal vote that is put out by the government, by Lee County. That way no one can say they interpreted it wrong. We are hoping very much that Lee County Commissioners will allow this straw poll to go forward,” Fox said.

She said the county manager is supposed to be in touch to ask additional questions. She said he needs to come up with certain answers to questions the Lee County Commissioners have.

“I’m hoping in the next few months we will have a positive answer from Lee County (for the issue of incorporation) to appear on the November 2020 ballot,” Fox said. “Until we know there will be a straw poll in November, we will not know if this thing will move forward next year.”

There are a number of benefits to incorporating, one of which is to stop overdevelopment.

“We are in favor of incorporation because we feel that if we have our own elected officials from our own community that know and care about the community, we can better protect our environment,” Fox said. “Right now we have a few restaurants, small businesses and galleries that serve the island. We have very little fast food restaurants. We don’t have a single chain restaurant. That creates opportunities for ordinary people to have small businesses that are sustained.”

Another benefit, the tax money, which now goes to Lee County to pay for services, does not benefit the Pine Island community. She said if they incorporate, they would be able to use that tax money for their own benefit and perseveration of the Greater Pine Island lifestyle.

There are some potential risks that the community has brought forth, lawsuits and the cost of clean-up after a major natural disaster.

“This issue is emotional. We are trying to cool things down so we can have some genuine communication and rational discussion about this. It seems that everybody is in favor of the final goal, which is to keep our area beautifully, ecologically sound and safe and everyone is for that. It’s all a matter of how we go about doing that,” Fox said.

The Greater Pine Island Civic Association plans on continuing to educate the community about incorporation, as well as have those discussions about the pros and cons.

“We also plan as a board to meet with the board of the Matlacha Civic Association who tend to be against incorporation, so we can get to know each other personally and understand the arguments on both sides,” Fox said. “We are really quite hard at work trying to find ways to better foster communication about the issues and educate people more about the facts.”

For more information about incorporation, visit the Greater Pine Island Civic Association’s website at www.gpica.org. The website includes incorporation FAQs and documents.