Cape Informer

The early parts of council meeting passed mostly uneventful. The city passed the ordinance related to the Super Target center, on Pine Island Road, and a pair of other small zone changes. Very little of interest, other than Mr. Rosado stopping, in the middle of one of the votes, to address the applicant, and advise them how to ‘ask their representative for help’ in the future. He then voted to deny that ordinance. The denial failed. He then voted to approve the ordinance, when it was moved to approve it.

The mayor asked to limit speakers to 2 minutes each, to prepare for the number of residents who attended to speak about the candidates for district 1.

Not a single individual spoke in favor of, or in opposition to, a single candidate. It seems residents had other things on their minds.

Mr. Maida again brought up his petition, about illegal immigration. He provided council with copies of death threats he has received. This is a chilling thought. Each of us has the right of petition, we hold The Freedom of speech. Any resident offering death threats to someone in opposition of their views is immoral, and unacceptable, in any way.

Mrs. Baron stood up, and cautioned the council about the changes being made to stormwater easements, and the removal of swales. She pointed to the very real possibility of pollution in our waters. Her opinion on this should be followed carefully. She spent over 20 years working in, or managing that department, prior to her retirement two years ago. The council will do well to continue to heed her advice.

The final two speakers did ask that the council vote along the lines of “the will of the people.” Hinting at the sentiment that the number two candidate in the previous election was the ‘runner up’ in the election.

Next, the Auditing plan for 07 was presented, with hints of things to come in 08 and 09. Because of my dissatisfaction with how the Auditor’s office is managed, I will admit my opinion may be slightly jaded. I do not feel Ms. Newman is providing a strong leadership there. She is going to have a ‘practice run’ in 08 to lead up to a real “QA Process” in 09. I am a firm believer in finding and fixing problems now. Waiting a full year for a dress rehearsal is preposterous. She should have simply budgeted a real QA this year, and dealt with the necessary repairs, after the process was completed. She did mention the Construction Contract Auditor who will be hired. This is a good move, and will ease problems in future UEP areas, because the audits will occur real time, with active data, rather than archived data.

A motion was granted for a 5 minute break, which took about 15 minutes.

After the break, the process of selecting Jim Jeffers’ replacement began. I will cover this separately, along with the incredible tirade that occurred during reports.

Here.

The issue of the appointment process has been debated rather heavily. More so than the candidates themselves. From my understanding, Mr. Kottkamp ran unoppossed for his seat, so the choice of his replacement is a non event, having been chosen exactly the same way as his predecessor.

I certainly hope that will serve as a wake up call for residents who are not voting. Use your rights, exercise them, or they will atrophy and die.

I’m sure Mr. Aubuchon will do well in office. I certainly have hope that he will. There are a number of issues that Cape Coral needs addressed. As with any other elected official, I’ll give him every opportunity to do what’s right, and ask for the best of his efforts, in doing so.

Did you know that Cape Coral has an online trouble ticket system, for all city issues? http://ecivicall.capecoral.net/ is the location of the website. Any resident can report a problem here to the city.

You will also receive follow up emails as the issue is handled. I have gotten feedback within 24 hours, when using the system. It is a ‘one stop shop’ for a great number of potential issues. Give it a try some day!

There are occassions where we face an obstacle in life, an insurmountable wall, that for the moment, is impassable. When that is the case, we can really only do one of two things.

We could rail against the wall, casting aspersions and burning all of our energy in a fruitless endeavor. Alternatively, we can choose to focus our energy on something different, until such a time that we find a different way of dealing with the obstacle.

In recent days, we have experienced some pretty severe flooding, in many areas. In some cases, residents have complained about it, and after receiving the complaints, the City sent out workers to clear debris, cut back grasses, and investigate drains. One could easily question whether or not this is news at all. It would seem to one taken to logical thought that this is a normal process.

Some residents, and our dear News-Press have taken this seemingly mundane task, and are happily working up a story about how the City administration is failing to handle flooding. If it’s not one thing they’re failing at, I’m certain these sleuths du jour will find another.

I have a suggestion for those residents, and reporters. Perhaps you should perform your civic duty, and give the City a list of locations in which you found flooding, and ask them to set it straight. I have found in my experiences with City Hall that merely asking for results, and waiting patiently, with gentle, but firm follow up, will provide results. Of course, this requires you as an individual to have a reasonable expectation, to begin with, and the patience necessary to wait and allow the city the opportunity to fix your problem.

You see, the City doesn’t own a working crystal ball. It isn’t going to magically show up at your street, moments before it floods, with mops and buckets. Instead, it will react to your needs, your queries and complaints, if it is something within it’s power to fix.

Did you know that 85% of the total of the current UEP goes directly to paying for “on site” work. This includes all of the excavation, pipe, mains, and people who work to put the pipes in the ground.

The remaining 15% is used to cover every remaining aspect of the project. That tiny slice covers engineering, project management, insurances, bond counsel, financing, inspections, and all of the other services and products that go into making our UEP successful.

The NP published yet another ‘tid bit’ today, discussing a handful of properties exempted from the sewer portion of the UEP. One resident, apparently outraged, created a poll on the NP forums, asking if we felt it was ‘fair’.

1.5 acre single family home lots, valued at $500,000.00 each. Three times the state minimum size for lots to use permanent septic. A total of 12 lots, in a single subdivision. Oh the horror.

Now imagine if sewer had been run to those 12 lots, using the methodology which existed when the SE-1 extension took place. They would have been billed for the first 200 square feet at the same rate as everyone else, and then they would have had to only pay 30% for the remainder of their square footage. Net result? The UEP would have been more expensive than it was, for all of the residents in the UEP.

Once again, the city acted in our best interest, and excluded a small number of properties that would have disproportionately benefited from a sewer extension, at everyone else’s expense.

No, it wasn’t ‘fair’ according to the rules at the time, those land owners didn’t get the ‘better deal’ that they would have received. They now are forced to pay betterment fees, in addition to any and all costs to add sewer to their properties, should they choose to do so.

Did you know that there is ongoing, heated competition for the Subcontractors involved in our UEP? Subcontractors are listed by the number of unresolved complaints from residents at their status meetings. Noone wants to be ‘in last place’ when faced with the customer (That’s us!).

This helps to ensure that complaints by residents are handled in a very timely manner.

I’m a frugal sort of person. I like to find a good bargain at the store. I shop for the cheapest plane tickets, and I drive an economical car. However, when I’m investing for myself, or evaluating a potential investment for one of my customers, I always look for the companies that spend their money consistently in areas that will shore up the business for the long term.

I make sure there is a reasonable advertising budget. I look for maintenance contracts, and I check that licenses are paid up on time. All of these are signs of good stewardship of the company. Any company not having these things up to date will always have hidden costs that the business investors will now have to make up some how.

There are many similarities in a public works project. You have to plan for the long term, plan for the short term, and make sure that you have the revenue coming in to grow your systems.

There are a large number of ways that you can pay to grow your public utilities infrastructure. Our current Infrastructure in Cape Coral is broken into three different major areas.

The first area is the one we all see. The one which we become all too intimately familiar with when that assessment paper shows up. The pipes in the ground. This area of infrastructure is currently paid from assessments. There are other things rolled into those assessments, so we’ll save that part of the discussion for another day.

The next area, is the pump stations. The middle of the line infrastructure that moves the sewer away, and the water and irrigation to the property. This infrastructure is covered by Impact fees. You’re charged this fee when you hook into the system.

The third, and final area is the plant. We have plants that get water out of the ground, others that reclaim waste water so it can be treated, mixed, and sprinkled as irrigation water, and others still that dispose of the unusable remains. This area is currently being funded via increases in sewer and water rates.

All of this infrastructure has to be built somehow. The money doesn’t appear out of the air. Thankfully, the Finance Department found a reasonable approach for building out all of this necessary infrastructure.

There are other alternatives. We could raise the impact fees, or spread them out better. Remember, however, that these modifications carry other, long term effects, that can impact how our investments in property here grow. This is where the similarity comes in. It’s interesting to see the occassions that government begins to ‘think like a business’.

I’ve heard from a number of residents that they think it’s best to “let business pay for it!” This is along the same lines as the “Let the City pay for it!” responses. The city is you and I. The residents who live and work and own property here. The businesses that are here are also investing in the City’s future. So in effect, they are. Those comments really translate to “Let business pay to grow the city, so I don’t have to.”

The truth is, we all have to pay. We’ll put dollars in now, and we’ll get more out of it later, than what we’ve put into it. That’s true of the residential areas, and the businesses. The only reason that won’t come true for you, is if you jump out of the game too soon.

Did you know that the City and MWH work with the subcontractors to select project areas that fit the criteria of 90% restoration of 90% of the project area, in under 90 days? Sometimes it can be as little as a single street as a project area. Sometimes up to a city block.

They define 90% of the area, because the lowest points require the most digging, and therefore, the most time. The further away from the low spot, the faster you will be restored.

90% Restoration is defined as ‘ready to pave’, and doesn’t include final sod or paving.

This 90/90/90 plan ensures the minimum possible impact on the lives of the residents in affected areas.

During this most recent bout between residents and City Hall, one council member stood up, and took the fight, head on. He started questioning every single aspect of the project. This part of his action is 100% commendable. I don’t want to take anything away from that. This is how it’s done, in my opinion. When your residents don’t like something your governing body is doing, dig in, ask questions and get answers.

When you’ve done that, stop for a moment, and digest those answers. More important than asking the questions, is getting the answers and processing them. I think Mr. Day continues the questioning, even though the answers are now right in front of him.

I met with Mr. Day during the break. Mr. Rosado called me over, for reassurances that I understood his position. After speaking to him, I turned to Mr. Day. As I stated here, I asked him directly, to show his proof. He said to wait for his report to council. He said he had an answer.

Next, he asked me why I wasn’t angry about my increased property taxes. Why I wasn’t mad about the oncoming assessments. I answered, “I have a solution.” He believes the 1c sales tax is no solution. “If that’s your only solution, go back to the drawing board.” He doesn’t believe people will pass it. He tossed several arguments my way, I had an answer for each:

“Residents didn’t pass 1/2 cent trauma center tax” There is a level of distrust, and dissatisfaction with the Lee Health System. There was (operative word was) a competitive source for hospital care in the county. Lastly, as good markets do, the market took care of itself, and LMHS purchased the competition. This is of course, a whole different topic, for a different day.

“The County doesn’t want to pay for your sewer” Does the county want to finish its road widening? How about the bridge construction? How about the sewers that will eventually be required in Lehigh Acres?

“You would depress LeHigh Acres if you tried to assess them for sewers” Why would we need to assess them? It’s a public health threat to keep septic systems in the ground. We’ll just do away with them with some of the over 80 million dollars per year of that sales tax going just to county.

“Are you a staff plant?” Nope.

“They’ll tar and feather you” I’ll get a nice rain coat.

Mr. Day was asked to publicly apologize for misstating someone else’s statements to the press. The Mayor quickly reminded the gentleman speaking to avoid any personal attacks. At that point, the speaker simply drew himself back, and calmly, and rationally explained his entire position. He spoke well, and he presented a handful of valid (if well tread) reasons for stopping illegal immigration. He never got his apology.

Mr. Barth (Edit: thanks for the correction!), a regular visitor to our council chambers, also spoke up. He asked residents to stop begging for subsidy, not caring where the money comes from, and start working for solutions. Mr. Bartlett also asked Mr. Day to accept that we need sewers, because of our unique geography. He tires of the continuance of investigation after investigation. For his calm demeanor, he received a nasty rebuttal from Mr. Day.

Finally, during Mr. Day’s report to council, he revealed his plan to find evidence. The contract signed just before the SE1 Sewer only expansion added language to comply with a recommendation of the Townsend audit. It allows an Auditor to go to MWH, and compare the billing rates for the 16 individuals working directly for the city to the amount they are actually paid. So through all of the bluster, and political swagger, in the end, the only thing Mr. Day is going to get is the A-OK that MWH isn’t overbilling for their direct staffers.

When the all clear is sounded, what will be next for Mr. Day? Will he continue to demand that we don’t need sewers? Will he finally decide to join the rest of us in finding a new way to pay for all of this? We can only hope that tomorrow will be a brand new Day.