Hold Corps accountable for our tax dollars
If you hired a contractor to repair your home at a cost of $2 million, and they mismanaged the project creating significant damage to your neighborhood, would you hold them accountable or reward them with another job to the tune of $12 million that they admit will fail?
That is what our elected government officials are doing with our hard-earned tax dollars! Is this fiscal and environmental responsibility? Is this government lite?
In May of 2009, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers removed 2.3 acres of beach and vegetation from Bowditch Point Park and dredged a reported 225,000 cubic yards of sand from the channel at Matanzas Pass at an estimated taxpayer cost of $2 million. The result? In July, the Corps admitted forming an offshore island that created the rapid erosion at the Pink Shell Resort and surrounding beach front properties.
The Corps has mismanaged all nine inlet dredging projects to date by not including a porous, movable groin. The Corps receives no money unless they have a project to build, so they propose projects that are perpetual to guarantee their own future existence. There is no incentive to provide a one-time, cost-effective solution to a problem on the taxpayer’s behalf. The next $12 million is just a down payment on Corps job security at taxpayer expense.
Our county, town and state officials are elected and paid to serve the taxpayers, not to perpetuate government entities such as the Corps. They should immediately stop wasting our tax money in meetings with property owners to create a state-owned artificial beach, and start meeting with the Corps to solve the problem at Matanzas Pass. Our county officials have not investigated the reduced cost of that solution-oriented adaptable approach.
Government accountability for our interests and our tax dollars is way past due.
Joanne Shamp
Fort Myers Beach