Cape Informer

Candidate Information

District: District 3
Name: Michael D. Orchin
Occupation: Self-employed painting contractor (small business)
Website: None
Email: morchin@comcast.net
Phone: 239-574-6318

What is your vision for the City of Cape Coral? What will the city look like after your first full term in office?

My vision for the City of Cape Coral is one where the government and the people are able to function as partners. At this point, the city is run in a secretive manner led by a City Manager who is looking for work elsewhere who somehow manages to obtain and transmit faulty, erroneous or incomplete information to Council. Council then takes this misinformation and continuously fumbles the ball. It is not what the city will look like if my visions come to fruition, it will be more of how it feels. Sidewalks, trees and attractive medians may make the city look better, but it doesn’t make it feel like home. When all citizens feel they are a part of a government that represents their values and fulfills their needs, then and only then will Cape Coral feel like home.

What do you see as the largest challenges facing the city? What are your plans for addressing these challenges?

I see two main challenges facing the city. The first is slowing down the fiscal money train that is and has been out of control for many years (I will discuss this further in the next paragraph). The second is returning the citizens’ trust (if it ever was there to begin with) in their city government from top to bottom. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. For the 15 years I have been here, we have been electing the same candidates over and over with the same results (that proves the definition is correct). Everything needs to be done in the sunshine with complete freedom of information to the people and the press, preferably online as well as going to City Hall to demand it. Too often important legislation is voted on with little public debate, either on Council or between Council and the citizens. If elected, I will hold at least one “New England style” town hall meeting where the public can debate/discuss the issues at hand while the politicians listen and learn (something they seem to be unable to do in local government).

What are your plans for controlling the costs of government services, assessments, taxes and fees to our citizens and businesses?

I would propose an immediate audit of all departments to get rid of wasted motion, redundant duties and unneeded positions. I would start this at the top by doing my best to rid ourselves of at least one, if not both, assistant city managers. I would propose zero based budgeting become our standard when working on our fiscal priorities. I would put all taxes (which include fees and assessments of any kind) under a microscope to see how they can be modified. Currently, the way the utility expansion program has been bid out and mismanaged (manager at risk) is one of the biggest travesties to be foisted onto the citizens of Cape Coral in the history of our city.

What are your plans for improving the economic situation and general appeal of our city for current and future residents and businesses?

There are some exciting things on the horizon for downtown Cape Coral if we can get CRA to quit stumbling around in the dark. Having a real downtown would be of tremendous value for our curb appeal. The Department of Code Enforcement needs to be beefed up and turned into a profit making entity rather than an ineffective money pit. The fines for violating city codes of importance need to be increased so that they just don’t fall into the cost of doing business for those who ignore them. If our city doesn’t look attractive and friendly from the curb, few people in businesses are going to be encouraged to move in. We should be advertising and promoting ourselves up North because now with property values being what they are, this is a great time to locate here. I would not object to economic incentives to businesses as long as it did not include endless tax deferment.

What are your plans for using new communication and business tools provided over the internet for residents and businesses to contact you, or for you to share your ongoing work with residents?

When elected, the city provides all Council members with email and, of course, we would have access to all Cape Coral websites. I would, of course, establish my own website so that people can contact me privately if they wish to make comments or suggestions that they don’t want in the public domain.

[Where: 33990]
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Elections, 33990. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.