More double talk
To the editor:
Once again, the double talk on beach re-nourishment is out there for all to hear. How can anyone possibly miss it?
Mayor Larry Kiker said in a local paper last week that December is the deadline for the re-nourishment project and always has been.
Really? That’s not what Commissioner Ray Judah told our residents. He said at a public meeting in July that August had to be the deadline. He said that – emphatically – to a room full of islanders at the Pink Shell Resort Hotel. It would be too late to do all of the preliminary work after that and the state and federal money would probably be gone, he told your constituents.
With this kind of double talk coming from the peddlers of this plan, is it any wonder property owners have refused to buy into it?
Unfortunately, while our water supply continues to crumble beneath us, putting residents and businesses alike at risk, and while our streets continue to flood, it sounds like the Mayor, instead of ordering a serious focus on those problems, will continue ordering his staff to spend countless more hours of their time doing what was supposed to be the county’s job – going door to door begging for re-nourishment easements. A this point, that exercise is useful only as an attempt to try and save face for all of the politicians involved in this horribly mismanaged re-nourishment plan.
Countless more man hours, adding up to countless more public dollars, spent on a specious plan that about 70 percent of the Gulf front private property owners in its path have time and again refused to accept.
Exactly what part of the word no is it that you, Mr. Judah and John Albion don’t understand, Mayor?
Go fix the broken down water system, now. Go fix our island’s flooding problem, now. Go enforce all of the town laws and codes that go on being ignored, now. Residents have a right to expect some action on those problems right now.
And please Mayor, specify for all of us exactly what “good things” it is you claim the county has done for our island as a result of all this backslapping with commissioners. Point to us all the visible evidence of the county’s largess other than that political boondoggle wreck of a house sitting at Newton Park. And spare us the example of the patchwork paving that disgusted even you.
The schmoozing with county politicians has been going on for all of the 20 months of this council’s term together. It’s time to stop sucking up to them and start pitching some hardballs. It’s time the residents of this island start seeing some results, from both the county and their town council.
Lee Melsek
Fort Myers Beach