To the editor:

In what was intended to be a private letter to the Council, I now feel it needs to be made public. There are too many recommendations that have been on the table or newly communicated, that warrant discussion. The continued inciting comments, such as “mythical option to pay the debt” or “many don’t want to come to the (Tuesday) meeting because they are afraid they would be shouted down” reflects the arrogance and inability to recognize mistakes and move forward to reach better solutions than its current, “my way or the highway approach.”

Mr. Mayor, Council Members,

It is time to stop kicking the can down the road. As elected officials, you were responsible for the success of Cape Coral’s growth and development. You were responsible to make and manage policy decisions to meet these ends. You have control over a long- term city manager who has the resources to carry out your every directive to the most finite detail. He has an entire city staff to bring forth relevant alternatives and recommendations as you require. And then to implement, measure and monitor your directives to ensure that they reach the intended target. As a council, you’ve enjoyed a continuity of staggering elected membership to bring fresh ideas to the table and to assist in identifying new opportunities or to shed light on the the wasteful ones. You have a diversity of backgrounds to provide new insight and ask probative questions as items came to your desk. And finally, you had public support.

Yet today, with the sobering statistics of foreclosures, unemployment, business closings and personal wealth turning more negative each day, you stay the course of spend- and-tax. Your efforts have not been thwarted the any of the folks that have come before you to voice concerns, the warnings issued by the auditors or even by Fitch’s Bond Rating down grade to negative.

Now with your most ardent supporter, the regional daily, expressing its displeasure of the public’s decorum and fellow council members feeling the anxiety over a spotlight being put on a single vote, you’re about to deal with the UEP Expansion Project SW 6/7 and a thrown together, N1-8 water only. You’ve artfully pitted voter against voter, using water rate increases as the need to move forward, rather than taking responsibility for the project short comings to date and solving them with the effected voters. You want the new impacted areas to provide cover for old sins. You need, with the first sense of urgency ever displayed by this mayor and council, to cover your collective butts and hope general apathy prevails.

This strategy is reckless. You will not have a booming economy to hide behind. Pontification, verbal tirades, cryptic one liners and dressing down of different groups of people will promote more questions, as folks manage their pocketbooks. They will demonstrate how adults make decisions and solve problems. They will be asking the continuum of why questions that should have been asked over the past projects. They will avoid the rocks. They recognize that mocking a question doesn’t make it invalid or mocking a statement doesn’t change its truthfulness, they will push back. They will not accept the inability to get data on pertinent questions, nor buy decoder rings to understand the build up and tie out of its content. They will at every opportunity hold you to campaign promises and insist that voter referendums are not undone by clever language or personal agendas.

It is time for decisive action to restore confidence.

1. Communicate to the citizens that the new water plant was a mistake caused by incompetent planning and that the whole city should shoulder the cost up front, not the N1-8’s, just because they were next in line. They could still pay their share of impact fees to the city, when they build, as used to be the practice. This would eliminate the immediate need to build the distribution infrastructure for $198 million, solely to legitimize a Capital Reservation Fee under the guise of “fee for benefit”, to meet the law.

2. Present a study on the projected impact of both positions and communicate it prior to citizen comments and the actual vote. Subject areas should include bucketed demographic data by age, income, marital status, work status/retired, land owner, homeowner resident/nonresident, renters, home values, etc. Along with growth indicators of home/ land sales, median prices, land and home foreclosures, tax certificates, cash flow, bond requirements, etc.

3. Present and pass a motion to rescind the extension of Mr Stewart’s contract as your first step to defining policy for the city of Cape Coral.

Larry Choquette

Cape Coral