Short Term Rentals

Recently Civic sent the following e-mail to the mayor and we await his response. In the meantime we would like to hear your response on the subject of short term rentals. Should the city allow a commercial motel/hotel business to operate in residential single family neighborhoods?

Dear Mayor,

Quality of Life is probably one of the most important issues to the residents of Cape Coral.

As such, the issue of short term rentals has surfaced once again as Civic has had received numerous complaints regarding the operation of a motel/hotel business in single family residential neighborhoods. Short term rentals are perceived to have a negative impact on permanent residents in neighborhoods where this activity occurs.

Cities such as Naples, Sarasota and Sanibel all have ordinances that limit single family residential rentals to a one month minimum. The City of Cape Coral limits garage sales to three per year but does not limit the number of times a home can be rented in a given time period.

This issue last came before city council on Sept. 11, 2000 with Ord. 88-2000, limiting transient commercial activity use to no less than 28 days. The ordinance was defeated on a 4-3 vote.

Please take a look at this ordinance and let me know what your position might be relative to possible renewed efforts to impose rental restrictions in single family neighborhoods.

Politics in Paradise

Politics in Paradise has long been a long standing column that appears in the monthly Civic Chatline newsletter which provides comments and opinions on city and county elected officials and bureaucrats.
You now have the opportunity to post your own thoughts in this forum on these individuals as well. We hope you will take advantage of this area especially since these officials provide so much material to comment about.
Enjoy

Freedom Fest Parade

Cape Coral had another great parade yesterday to honor our soliders and veterans. A majority of the elected officials stayed home.

Civic extends a thank you to Mayor Feichthaler and Council members Bertolini and LePera for your participation in honoring these honorable people and thanking them for their service to our country.

Isn't it funny how we had more of these politicans participate in our last parade. Ah but yes, that was because there was an election coming up back then and they were counting votes. Yesterday's parade was a way to count blessings for the service of our veterans. Maybe counting votes is more important than counting blessings!

"Governmentium"

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium."

Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the
assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium - an element which radiates just as much energy as the Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Enjoy and Be Aware

City Elections

There was no revelation in reading Mayor Feichthaler’s comments in today’s Breeze regarding Sharon Harrington’s “flexibility” on moving the city elections to November of odd numbered years. Mrs. Harrington has been willing to do that ever since council complained about our low voter turn out. She confirmed her willingness to do this during her own election last November.

The problem is her refusal to conduct city elections when the rest of the elections are conducted in November of even years. 82% of Cape Coral voters, who voted on April 5, said we want our elections at the same time as Federal, State and County elections, in other words where they were originally in November of even years. Anything short of this mandate is a continued slap in the face to the taxpayers who pay her salary.

For Ms. Harrington to say, “It’s not that we can’t do it, but if the ballot becomes too long, there’s not enough time to make intelligent decisions,” is remarkable. Informed voters don’t make their decisions in the voting booth; they make their preferences prior to going to the polls.

It is time the voters of all Lee County municipalities let Lee County Elections Supervisor Sharon Harrington know of their displeasure in her job performance. The Ivotronic voting machines are not limited by ballot size; however our rights as voters are being limited by the refusal of one elected official.

What You Read in the News-Press

In a News-Press story, The Cape on May 10, Cape Coral Editor Tom Hayden wrote about Mayor Feichthaler getting comfortable in his seat.
Mr. Hayden included in his article that the Watchdogs and the Cape Coral Civic Association are groups that figured to make the mayor “squirm in that chair.” He wrote this without basis of fact but rather proffered an opinion.

Hayden also wrote “The Watchdogs and Civic Association criticized Feichthaler during the campaign, saying he did not reveal his complete income. There hasn’t been much criticism from them during the first four meetings. I wonder if they are planning their next move?”

While I can not speak on behalf of the Watchdogs, I can speak on behalf of Civic. What Mr. Hayden wrote is again lacking any basis of fact. What he wrote is totally untrue. In speaking with the Mayor regarding the article he told me that his interview with Hayden did not include any mention of the Cape Coral Civic Association. So, I fail to see any connection as to why the Civic Association should have been mentioned in Mr. Hayden’s story on Feichthaler, not unless Mr. Hayden’s comments are intended to create controversy between the Mayor and Civic.

As a result, I spoke with Mr. Hayden on 5/13 regarding his article. Hayden said that since a complaint was filed against Feichthaler by a person who is a member of Civic he assumed this was an action from the Civic Association. I told Mr. Hayden that his assumption was wrong and what a Civic member does as an individual has no bearing on what the Civic Association does as an organization. As an example, if someone is a member of a church and filed a complaint against Mr. Feichthaler does that mean the entire Church as an organization was critical of him? Of course not.

We hope Mr. Hayden will keep this in mind for future reference. We would hate to think that the News-Press is more interested in CREATING news than it is in REPORTING it.

Public Safety Building

The city has expressed its need for a new Public Safety Building to replace the current Police and Fire Administration Building (old city hall) located at Nicholas and County Club Blvd. Expectations are that the cost will be about $50 million. Unlike the City Hall building, hopefully, this issue will be placed before the voters who will be asked to approve a GO Bond for funding.

Another funding mechanism being considered to help pay for the Public Safety Building is a new Public Safety Impact Fee. The Civic Association has always agreed that if Fire Impact Fees are justifiable then it also makes sense to have a Police Impact Fee, or combine both Fire and Police in the form of a Public Safety Impact Fee.

On 5/9/05 Council member AJ Boyd said; “It’s something we should have considered a long time ago. Most communities have a public safety impact fee.” AJ let us remind you that you did consider a Public Safety Impact fee “a long time ago,” and you rejected it! Council member LePera brought this idea before council back in Sept. 1999. The only support she received was from Council member Stevens. Had council considered the merit of the issue back then it’s highly possible that there might have been enough money accumulated to build a PS Building now without the need to borrow money. So much for planning and vision.

AJ’s memory is also cloudy when it comes to the cost for City Hall. The price tag exceeded $17million and that doesn’t take into account the associated land and right of way cost that was in excess of $2.5 million. With the associated finance costs for Revenue Bonds the city hall building project was over $35 million for which we are all still paying. The only opposition ever expressed by the Civic Association relative to City Hall was in response to council’s refusal to allow the city hall funding to go before the voters for a GO Bond.

And for AJ Boyd and Mr. Day’s information, the “Cadillac” version of city hall demanded by former Mayor Butler is exactly what the city built. Any claims by elected officials that the reason we are running out of space at city hall is because “a group of people objected to the building size” is pure B.S. on their part.

Failed Parks GO Bond

In April 2003 city voters rejected a $35 million GO Bond initiative that would have provided the city with necessary funding to purchase additional city park land and in particular the Festival Park. The construction industry supported the GO Bond. If the city had GO Bond money in hand for parks it would relax the need for park impact fee increases.

Since the failure of the GO Bond the city has been purchasing park land as impact fee money accumulated as opposed to buying all of the land at one time with the money the GO Bond would have provided. Also if you recall, the Cape Coral Civic Association supported the GO Bond initiative at that time. Civic supported the initiative since it recognized back then that the cost for park land (as we are now seeing) for the purchases over time would greatly increase the cost to the city. Perhaps one reason the GO Bond failed was because of the “Go Play Cape Coral” marketing scheme supporting the need for the GO Bond. Perhaps the voters needed a better education on the importance of the Park GO Bonds as opposed to asking for voter approval based on “Go Play” concept.

Over the past two years city land values have skyrocketed. This means that Park Impact Fees that were established two years ago are now buying less and less land and that the original projections for the cost to complete the land purchases for Festival Park are now far higher than originally anticipated by the city. There is now the question of affordability when it comes to completion of the Festival Park in addition to the fact that over the past two years all available Park Impact fees were not solely dedicated to this project.

Two years ago the city administration submitted recommendations calling for an increase in park impact fees from $460. to $1450. to help pay the cost of the bond. However, the majority on council at that time refused to allow the Park Impact Fees to be increased more than the current amount of $1115. for a new single family residential home. Just think about the amount of money that has been lost to the city by not having the additional $335 over the past two years alone. There is now talk of asking the voters to again consider a Parks GO Bond. In the mean time council should also consider revisiting the Park Impact Fees for another increase.

Road Impact Fees

In 2000 a Road Impact Fee study concluded that the city road impact fees needed to be increased to $1742. Rather than enacting the fees at that time a majority of the city council set into motion a 5year plan to implement Road Impact Fees over time. Today the Road Impact Fees still remain $243 below the recommendations of the 2000 study. Efforts to accelerate those fees also failed when a majority of council refused to recognize the negative financial impact to the city by their failure to act accordingly.

This issue last came before council on Sept. 15, 2003 at the request of former Mayor Kempe. Asfour, Boyd, Day, Rosado and Tate all voted against increasing the Road Impact Fee to the level suggested as being needed back in 2000. The failure of these individuals to vote responsibly has resulted in the loss to the city of almost $5 million from new single family home construction alone, during this same short period of time.

The city’s new study suggests that Road Impact Fees need to be increased again and that that increase may be as much as 80%. As we mentioned in the past few years the city lost almost five million dollars because of the incremental fee schedule council enacted. At the May 9, 2005 city council meeting Ord. 75-05 amending the Road Impact fees was introduced and will come before council for a vote.

We find it interesting that Council member Dolores Bertolini who originally sponsored this ordinance withdrew her name as sponsor, giving no reason. The mayor asked if another council member would sponsor this ordinance. This resulted in there being a very long silence before anyone would step up to the plate and put their name to it. Finally Council member Jeffers agreed that he would sponsor the ordinance.

All of this leads us to wonder why Bertolini withdrew her name as sponsor to the ordinance? This is a city administration initiative that is bringing the ordinance forward citing the need to increase Road Impact Fees. In all likelihood the CCCIA will probably again complain to council about there being an increase (any increase) to the cost of a new home. That is exactly what they did in 2000 and council acquiesced to their “concerns.” As a result, by the city’s own calculations there has been a loss of over $5million. The question is how many of them (council) will vote against the new recommended road impact fee increase again or water it down like they did previously? Time will tell.