Town inches closer to Bay Oaks ownership
With four months looming before the expected take over of Bay Oaks Recreation Center and its surrounding facilities, Fort Myers Beach Town Manager Scott Janke asked the town council for authorization to draft an interlocal agreement so that the town could formally assume full ownership of the property and its operation and request accompanying financial resources to ensure a smooth transition with Lee County.
Janke asked for a motion from council to include a $220,000 payment from county to the town for unfunded capital reserves and a cash payment of $100,000 to help with the transition and operations for the next fiscal year.
Janke reviewed the details from a letter he received from Commissioner Ray Judah.
“In essence, it tells us the county is out of the business at the end of this fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2008) and that the town takes over the operation on Oct. 1,” he said. “They specifically addressed each of the points that we put in our opening negotiations letter and, essentially, denied them other than they are willing to fund the unfunded capital reserve monies for the facilities.”
The town manager’s staff has been building a budget for Bay Oaks. Janke has assigned an individual employee on his staff to work almost exclusively on the issue.
The Bay Oaks “update” under the town manager’s items drew much discussion among the council members.
Councilman Bob Raymond asked about the operational aspects as well as what programs are to be expected. He also was concerned where this fits in within the next fiscal year budget.
“We put $275,000 into operations at Bay Oaks last year,” said Janke. “That’s what I’m going to put in this year. We are, as an administration, going to build a budget backwards with the amount of money we had allocated last year and continue our due diligence of figuring out the programs and operations. We’re going to try to protect all the best and most needed programs: after school; summer camp; and seniors.”
Vice Mayor Herb Acken asked Janke if the town planned on excluding nonresidents of the Beach from Bay Oaks.
“The normal way to do this is that the nonresident pays a higher user fee than the resident, because the resident’s tax dollar is supporting the facility,” said Janke. “This is common.”
Councilman Tom Babcock was not willing to tie any dollar amount into the Interlocal with the county. He believes more could be given from the county.
“This is too important for us to rush through and not do it right,” he said. “We need to have a workshop to develop a strategy to go forward for not just the next year but for the next five years at least, because it has a capital element and operational element to it.”
Councilwoman Jo List -the council liason to Bay Oaks- threw caution to the long-term planning at this point.
“That’s something that we don’t have the luxury to do right now,” she said. “We need to make sure we get some capitalization money and maybe a little bit more money on top of that. We need to move this part of it now because they are not asking us if we want it. We were told that we were getting Bay Oaks. Nobody asked us about it.”
Mayor Larry Kiker asked his fellow council members to be reasonable on the financial end.
“That’s not the way we’ve approached this thing,” he said. “We’ve done this with a solid study with good information. We’ve gone for it with good faith. I don’t think we want to lose Bay Oaks. I don’t think we want to lose any of the programs. I don’t think we want to put ourselves in jeopardy.”
The council then set forth a motion to add $70,000 for additional capital reserves on top of the previously mentioned $220,000 and $100,000 payments for the suggested interlocal.
If any Beach residents want to express their concerns or add input, the interlocal will be reviewed at the FMB Town Council meeting on Monday, June 15.