Council ties up loose ends
Monday’s Fort Myers Beach Town Council meeting had a multitude of tie up issues prior to that night’s budget meeting, but there were some familiar topics as well.
Contract work has been an ongoing issue this season, mostly due to optics and transparency.
“I just don’t want to sign off on a blank style contract that I haven’t seen the end result of. Some contracts have provisions built in instead of insurance or other perks. I’d like to know exactly what we’re signing, because no two contracts are exactly the same,” Councilmember Rexann Hosafros said.
The contracts are the purview of town staff, specifically the town manager, since they are in charge of staffing.
“I don’t think we should be getting in the way of staffing, it is an agenda item, but at the end of the day, this is a town manager department,” Councilmember Joanne Shamp said.
Hosafros and Mayor Anita Cereceda requested the general purview of each contracted employee, their job title and work designations be included in the “preview” contracts so that there weren’t any surprises.
“A lot of the blanks in the sample contract we provided are just carry overs from last year. Unless their actual position changed, the information from contracts last year to this year are the same with the exception of pay,” Town Manager Roger Hernstadt said.
In the end, the contracts were unanimously approved, once the contracts had been explained and each contract had been laid out to Council.
“I’m very happy with how everyone has responded, I didn’t think we had an unreasonable request with wanting to know the work hours, job descriptions, and other general information,” Hosafros said.
The other big item on the agenda was a brief presentation by Sanibel Mayor Kevin Ruane regarding several environmental and clean water initiatives.
“We’ve decided to push forward with projects on water quantity and water quality,” Ruane said. “We attended the US Conference of Mayors and wrote some significant protections for Everglades protections as well as other local clean water initiatives. Local governments from all over voted to help push this, so they were voting for a Florida interest, which shows you how important it is to people.”
Funding from federal sources is very important for environmental efforts and the efforts of the Florida League of Mayors, led by Ruane, are integral to taking these issues to Washington D.C.
Working with Florida representatives, they are bringing wetland, water quality, and climate concerns to the bigger governmental stages, bringing national optics onto these projects.
“We need to lead by example. Getting these initiatives started locally is just as integral to success as getting them approved and funded federally. Local rule is something we need to focus on,” Ruane said.
They are also bringing fertilizer and phosphate usages national, which Fort Myers Beach just had Florida preempt them on the local push to ban certain phosphate fertilizers with regards to algal growth.
The council has pledged to assist the Florida League of Mayors in pushing for these very important local environmental concerns both locally, state wide, and federally.