Town plays “Big Foot” with FMB Library Expansion
Reading your top headline and story in the latest Observer, one might be led to believe that the Fort Myers Beach Public Library had been willfully “noncompliant” with statutory requirements when, instead, the real issue is why the Town has injected itself into a matter which specifically concerns taxpayers of the library district, a separate and much larger area geographically and by population. However, it is also patently and provably true that, at the time Town Attorney Humphrey made his “report” to council, the Library had, in fact, already submitted the required report to the Town. If the report cited had been such “a vital, important, statutory accountability requirement” as the Town Attorney claims, it is interesting that the Town had never requested a copy of it from either the County (where it was, understandably, first filed) or from the library itself during the two years or more after it received complete land development permitting documents and a variance application for the expansion project – until, in fact, “discovering” this oversight just a few months ago.
Rather than congratulate the Library on a meticulously planned expansion project which is about to come to fruition after nearly 10 years, the Town Council has chosen not only to insert itself into the completely open, legal, and responsible activities of another taxing district. Rather than welcome the addition to the greater Fort Myers Beach community of a wonderful and useful facility which will only redound to the benefit of both the Town and the larger community, it has encouraged certain individuals to badger the library board and director with persistent requests for documents and information. Rather than celebrate with library patrons the exciting advent of a building that will finally have much-needed, up-to-date features such as Wi-Fi, ground level access, a larger community programs space, more room for children’s activities, and much more efficient and economical use of utilities and personnel, the Town is still choosing to spend our tax money on legal fees while also causing the Library to spend more on legal fees, searches and production of documents.
One cannot fail to observe that Town fathers are now and belatedly very concerned about the library expansion project and a Chapter 189 report requirement as contrasted with apparent lack of concern about their charter membership in a local music/theater group which has been in direct violation of Town and County permitting requirements for several years (reported in part in the Observer’s Jan. 19 lead story).
Why are they creating this controversy about the Fort Myers Beach Library, the one public facility on Estero Island which serves and is enthusiastically supported by the greatest number of visitors and locals alike and which, arguably, serves them all the most efficiently and effectively? What do they expect to gain for their taxpayers by belaboring a nearly defunct reporting requirement? After all, if the FMB library district did not exist, taxpayers in its district would have paid an additional 37 percent more, on average, in millage to the Lee County library system over the past 10 years.
Pat Smith is a member of the Friends of the Fort Myers Beach Library. She is a resident of Fort Myers Beach which is in the Beach Library district.