Cape Informer

Animated, opinionated and definitely outspoken, Mayor F was kind enough to sit down with me this morning and answer a few questions. We covered a range of topics, including the Rosado Scandal, Bloggers, tonight’s Town Hall Meeting and the new Public Safety building.

First, on the topic of Rosado, I asked the Mayor if he felt there would be a new date for the charter violation hearing. “It’s not going to happen” he stated flatly. While he continues to feel it was appropriate to continue, he noted the fact that the council voted against him, and therefore it would not likely be brought back up. The only exception to this would occur if Rosado were acquitted of the current charges, and placed back on the council by the Governor.

When asked about potential candidates, he mentioned that no one had directly applied, but three people have already expressed some interest in the position. He hopes to hold the appointment hearings and fill the position a week from Monday.

I asked if any other bloggers had come forward to interview, ask questions, or get involved in the process. He did mention a few names from the various local forums who are sending in emails. “I’ve had a few people give a heads up via email” speaking about various rumors floating about the boards. However, no one else has come forward for an interview of any form.

Lastly, we spent a great deal of time discussing the new Public Safety Building. Mayor F did express some concern over the cost. He feels that the figure was extremely high, but he has also put quite a bit of time in helping to reduce the cost.

The Mayor shared a pie chart graphic with me. Two figures jumped out immediately, an $8 million figure for Real Estate and an $11 million figure (10%) for Contingency monies. Mayor F has put some time in on the Real Estate, and expects to see that figure come down to about $5 Million, but he expressed concern about the contingency money. Careful cost controls, and the Real Estate savings could bring the final cost of the project down to $96 Million.

There are also other significant savings that could be realized, if the building is better utilized. There are bubbles where people are placed in the middle of certain spaces, to allow the department to grow over time. In the mean time, however, there is nearly 80k Square Feet of vacant space in the building. The mayor would like to see that space utilized for now, and I am in agreement. So far, the IT department and the EOC will be housed inside the new building, making some use of the space. However, there will be quite a bit of unused space, some of it for up to 10 years.

Another area of contention, the parking structure, is being reserved for only the police and fire departments, because it would be full, but only during shift changes. The Mayor has recommended making the parking structure on the current City Hall campus, and sharing it between the facilities.

When I asked about the current level of maintenance on the existing facility, the Mayor felt very strongly that a lack of maintenance was not to blame. Instead, he feels the roof damage from Hurricane Charlie was the likely culprit for the mold. Interestingly, the current building does not meet Fire Code, nor does it meet State Statutes for prisoner handling. Those two issues alone are a serious consideration in moving forward with the new building.

When asked about the use of the old building, the Mayor admitted that there are no solid plans yet. He did mention, however, that he would like to see the facility renovated and turned into a shared facility, where State and County services that are currently only available in Fort Myers, could have office space right in Cape Coral.

I also questioned the vote for removing the Term Limit referendum from the April ballot. He blamed this on consultants, who felt that the City would draw a “No” crowd to the vote, and lose the Public Safety building in the process. (I’m not ever going to agree on this point, I think the more voters, the merrier.)

We discussed the anticipated turnout for the April initiative, and the Mayor felt strongly it would be less than 10%. He mentioned a call in show that was aired yesterday on Cape TV. Only 3 people happened to call in with questions. I personally had not heard of the program.

Our last topic of discussion, the Town Hall Meeting, was quickly covered near the end of our nearly hour long meeting. When asked about the $86,000 advertising figure that was recently thrown out, the Mayor responded that the figure sounded very much like their entire annual budget for announcing land ordinances, which is required by State Law. However, he only sent an email out about this Town Hall Meeting, so likely, the Newspapers published that information at no cost to the city. As to the cost of the Theater for the evening, he mentioned that his belief was that there was no additional cost for using the theater tonight, because the City already helps fund the theater’s operations.

All in all, a very productive time. Candid answers for candid questions, and a generally logical approach to the issues at hand. I still have to take the tour of the old facility, and sit down with Chief Petrovich. I’m not decided yet, but I certainly have a lot more information than I did before.

The City Council voted 7-0 to request the Governor to suspend Mickey Rosado. State Statutes allow for the Governor to suspend any public official arrested of a felony.

The Governor will receive the letter from the City Council today, via Fax. They will also send a copy via registered mail. The resolution also called for a phone call to the Governor’s office, informing him of the council’s decision.

After a small discussion, the council decided to wait until Monday before making any changes in the upcoming proceedings on February 8th. During that discussion, it was disclosed that Rosado may have waived his right to a continuance.

The News-Press has filed a much more detailed story.

There is one fairly significant error in the article, They state that Giraldo spoke english, and Westphal spanish. That’s reversed. Giraldo is the spanish speaking investor, and Westphal is the local business owner.

There will be a special council meeting tomorrow, for Council to decide if they will send a letter to the governor, requesting Rosado’s removal. This meeting will be held at 1 PM tomorrow.

This has just started showing up on various news sources.

See: News-Press and NBC2

More details when I have them.

The first meeting of the New Year opens with an interestingly high amount of communication to the citizens of the City. A refreshing change from the seeming doldrums near the end of 2006.

(ED: Removed the paragraph RE: Change of Term Limit Vote, I was mistaken on what was voted on. This was a housekeeping change to make our city primary elections to a better date.)

The next item of interest, the Illegal Alien Hiring Resolution (76-06), was met with a healthy dose of American’s Standing Tall members. They all requested that the resolution include a compliance statement. The City’s Attorney continues to politically oppose the issue. Her first attempt was to remove the compliance issue. She then pointedly reminded that licenses would still be issued, even if they chose not to sign the compliance document. The Mayor’s statements showed disagreement with the City Attorney. However, the City Attorney then tried to claim that the documents issued were a tax. Her claim is that there is no power to require compliance of the law. My question here is merely, how can we not request companies to be in compliance with just laws?

Mrs. Bertolini asked the City Attorney if this was her opinion, or her personal feelings. She claimed that she did not intend to give the impression that businesses would not come to Cape Coral if they didn’t sign this document. Mrs. Bertolini then asked if in the event that the compliance document was signed, would any liability exist for the City. The City Attorney stated there would not be any additional liability for the City.

The Mayor asked about notarizing the document. The City’s Attorney stated that notarizing the document would help. She then tried to “not interject her personal feelings” but reminded the Council that she did not want to increase the number of documents that would be notarized.

Terry Stewart stated that there will be additional costs for this compliance. He did not state the amounts. He then asked about complying with Federal laws. He brought up the fact that we do not require truckers to sign anything about federal laws for trucking companies. I can say here that simply the difference is this: Someone starting a trucking company will not have more to sign than a construction company. We aren’t talking about trucking laws, we’re talking about illegal immigration. There is no slippery slope, because there is no connection.

The Mayor, and Council Member Day collaborated to add a statement to the statute that the contractor would sign under oath, that they would remain in compliance with the law, and require that this statement be notorized.

Mrs. Lepera questioned the capability of the ordinance to provide a real change. The Mayor pointed out that now the State’s Attorney can now prosecute a perjury charge. Citizens also have the right to point out violators to the State’s Attorney.

In the end, the motion passed unanimously.

To really dig in to the essence of what Freedom of Speech is, you have to be aware of the long standing rules that exist within our country. The Freedom of Speech, as with all other freedoms, carry a great responsibility.

There are very few limitations on speech. The few that have been addressed are mostly related to the general safety of individuals, and the country as a whole. The famous, if misquoted “shouting fire in a crowded theater” for example. This would not be considered speech, because it is both a lie, and dangerous to those within the theater.

You cannot slander, or libel someone, and consider it free speech. Stating provably untrue things about others is not a protected freedom of speech.

A third, and perhaps too often forgotten limitation on the freedom of speech is the so called “Fighting Words” doctrine. The Supreme court made an opinion in the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. They wrote:

“It is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. “Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution, and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument.”

You see, the Internet has created a juxtaposition for the Freedom of speech. You really cannot consider it “Free Speech” by saying whatever disgusting hurtful epithet comes to mind at any given moment. What you’re really having is a Freedom from retribution. You have still wronged another human being. That injustice is merely held harmless by the fact that you are physically out of reach of the other person.

That, friends is not protected as a Freedom in this great country. Those that take advantage of the fact that they can say things and not suffer the real consequences of their actions actually work to destroy the foundation of Free Speech that this country is founded upon. Abusing the anonymity that you gain is not a true protected freedom, but instead, it is merely an affront on decency.

I have been unavailable for wrap ups for several meetings, due to work keeping me away from home with travel. However, today, I was able to have the council meeting on via channel 14, while I was handling work. I was in this position not because I was working late, but instead, because the City chose to hold the meeting at 3 PM.

Firstly, I was more than a little upset over the fact that the meeting started during the normal work day. To hold a meeting of such importance at a time that many of our residents would be at work, hardly meets the standard of working for the public good.

I was given the explanation that the sheer amount of items required an earlier meeting. In reality, the meeting starting at 3 PM was at Public Input time by 3:15 PM. The meeting was adjourned by 4:11, until 5:30, when they will present the 19 remaining “public hearings” which will mostly amount to a monotone presentation of the rambling modifications to various PDPs, and a handful of ayes and nays. This will of course, be followed up by the sometimes famous reports of Mayor and Council.

There are usually at least one or two of these public hearings that have a small presentation or a few questions, but generally, these things don’t equate to the vast majority of time in council meetings.

Most of the council meetings which include anything of major interest are dominated by public input time, responses to the public input time, and the final reports of Mayor and Council. Today, the city has effectively eliminated the public input time, by having it in the middle of the afternoon. Therefore, there was very little to respond to.

Now if they could just do away with the bothersome reports, our council meetings could be over in no time!

Do you want that? I sure don’t. I want the meetings to be filled with interested people. Residents paying attention, and making their opinions known. Why do I want all the contentious, rabble rousing? Because that is exactly what makes things happen. That is exactly how a city grows. That is how residents ensure that their future, and their investments are well cared for.

What happened today is a recipe for disaster. The city council should never allow public input to the items which they vote for occur in times where residents are unable to attend. Residents should consider their council, and the meetings that they hold, to be extremely approachable. What happened today was unacceptable, and should not be accepted by any resident, or land owner within our community.

As everyone is probably pretty well aware, we’ve been anxiously awaiting a letter, requesting the opinion of the Attorney General. We (being the citizens of Cape Coral) wanted to know if the Auditor General was right, or if the City Management was right, regarding the recent audit performed by the State. You remember the one, where we get to ‘respectfully disagree’ with each other?

We can’t help ourselves, we’re human. We want to find answers when two individuals, or groups of individuals have different opinions. We want to know which opinion most closely matches reality. I think we’d all be a bit happier knowing one way or another. There was of course, an option which allowed this. Our City Council could request an opinion of the State Attorney General.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

Well, of course, it’s not quite that simple. The council approved an action which allowed one finding to be questioned. Finding number 20. This finding, according to the synopsis was:

“The City did not fully comply with provisions of Section 287.055, Florida Statutes, in procurement of its contract for its utility expansion program. Additionally, invoices submitted for payment by the contractor were not adequately supported. Finally, the City’s consultant hired to audit selected work authorizations relating to its utility expansion program included several findings and made several recommendations.”

The City Attorney took this opinion, sharpened her pencil, and came up with:

“Where construction manager at risk or program manager at risk services are procured, pursuant to local ordinance which conforms to the requirements of 287.055, Florida Statutes, for the design and construction of a multi-phase utility project, would 287.055(9)(c) preclude the negotiation of a guaranteed maximum price and a guaranteed completion date based on competitively bid subcontracts for each phase of the project?”

She then included an entire “Memoranda of law” which went on to fully illustrate the City’s official position. In the position, our City Attorney states quite clearly that the City built it’s own rules for bidding using “the most pertinent provisions of CCNA”.

So you’ll see that she is trying to justify her own statement, within the question, when she says that our “Local ordinance which conforms to the requirements of 287.055…”

Notice what’s missing there? I didn’t either at first. It took a few reads to really understand. Here’s what’s missing, The Auditor General was kind enough to point it out in his own rebuttal, to our fine City Management’s rebuttal:

“However, the point of our comment was that no documentation was available to demonstrate such evaluation occurred. Specifically, the City did not provide evidence that the contractor was appropriately licensed as of the date of the City’s evaluation.”

In addition, what appears to be missing is the entire foundation of the argument. Is it even legal to supersede a state law, set to ensure regularity within municipalities? What gives a municipality the right to overrule the State, in a rule, created to control the municipality?

So we’re left with real issues on the table. Is the City right in its stance that we are able to write our own rules for contracting? Is it right that the City did not provide evidence of the contractor licensing process?

These questions will not be answered by the letter to the Attorney general, in it’s current draft. We need to urge the Mayor and Council to request an opinion which more closely matches the needs of our City.

Our city has gone through years of agony about sewer systems. Recommendations came and went for different systems, different payment methods, different allocations. Some stuck, others await their day, and yet still others were apparently buried due to various interested parties sharing the why and how of the folly of short sighted decisions.

On Monday, we were yet again romanced with another notion. This notion carrying undertones ever more dangerous than any that has yet graced our esteemed city hall. This notion is clothed in the siren’s song of delaying sewer installations. A safe, effective way to keep septic systems, and avoid the assessments, at least for now. Or so the special interest who presented it would have you believe.

You see, the very people who came to tout the capability of septic to remain in our city are the very people who would profit from the septic systems remaining. Their comparisons to ‘filters’ and bureaucratic requirements of annual inspections, paid of course, by the home owners, were nothing more than a thinly veiled way to ensure a business, at the expense of our residents.

You see, eventually, you’re going to need sewer anyway. Eventually, the neighborhood you live in will fill out to the point that you will have to have an improved system. They of course, have an answer there. A “micro system” which would also be charged to the home owners. This system would then last for a while, until even it is no longer capable of handling your sanitary needs. Then you would be forced to install a “real” sewer. So you will not pay once for sewer, not twice, but indeed, thrice! The insult added is that with likely inflation, you will pay yet more for your sewers than you will if they are completed in a timely manner, during the next few years.

Pay three times, and pay more than you would have originally… Where is the deal in that for residents?

Of course this deal sounds great to members of “NOWRA” the National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Alliance, who’s members include Robert “Bob” Himschoot, who spoke so convincingly on Monday. Here is Bob’s Bio from the NOWRA website:

Now why would someone like that want to promote a government controlled bureaucracy that would force annual inspections of your septic system?

I’m certain Bob does a great job at what he does. I’m also sure, that if you need a good company to handle your septic for you, he is probably a candidate. However, it will never be in the interest of the residents of Cape Coral to have a vendor forced upon them to maintain, or inspect septic systems.

As promised, I am providing the Mayor’s take on the now infamous “Attorney General Flip Flop”. The mayor emailed Sunday evening to give me his recollection on the recent Attorney General vote.

Mayor F. says that Mr. Rosado, on returning from his month of leave, requested a status report on the AG letter. He then made a new motion that would examine all points of the Attorney General’s letter. The Mayor stated that Rosado’s motion was “either vague, broad or showed an incredible lack of understanding of the issues before us. Therefore, I and a majority of council voted no.”

He was concerned, however, that finding number 20 would not have been investigated, after this new vote that they took. That being the case, they took another vote to resume the original stated request, as a precaution. The ever challenging dance of bureaucracy, do watch your step!

The Mayor also assured me that the delay was “simply through workload.” He did not believe that the delay was at the direction of staff, or of any council member. He also said that if someone had directed a delay, he would seek serious punishment.

I’m afraid that my opinion on the delay hasn’t changed much. It’s an inflammatory issue, one which our political leaders should make a higher priority. They did at least, direct the City Attorney to respond by a deadline. This was missing from the original request, and as such, it’s at least a small improvement on the situation. Thanks, Mr. Mayor for the follow up. I’ll follow up again, after the letter is actually brought to council.