City of Cape Coral Web Page

Breeze article June 17, “Cape temporarily disables links” needs correction.
Civic does not take positions on candidates for office. Civic does not endorse candidates. Civic does take positions on issues and informs our members on the voting of elected officials on those issues, especially when those votes negatively affect residential neighborhoods and taxpayers of this city.

The issue of whether or not the Civic Association should be allowed to be linked to the City of Cape Coral’s official web page has been the focus of Council member A.J. Boyd’s latest witch hunt against Civic with a bogus complaint to the city manager. This resulted in the city manager disabling links to some of the local organizations such as Civic. However, links to other organizations such as the CCCIA, CC Chamber of Commerce and Realtors remain in place.

Mr. Boyd claimed that he had requests (but conveniently can’t remember from whom) to allow a local anonymous internet blogger to be linked to the city web page. His rationale is that if Civic is allowed the anonymous blogger should also be allowed. For Boyd to even remotely try to create a parallel for an anonymous blogger and the Cape Coral Civic Association is absolutely absurd. Civic is a registered corporation in the State of Florida and unlike the anonymous blogger, everyone knows who the officers of the Civic Association are and how to contact them.

Civic has served its community for 42 years. Civic provides a venue for monthly meetings that are free of charge and open to the general public. Civic meetings are geared for the discussion and debate of issues that affect us all as residents of the City of Cape Coral and Lee County. The incorporation of the City itself in 1970 is a direct result of Civics’ efforts and we seriously doubt this could have occurred through the silencing of Civic that Boyd would like to now see happen. We continue to have people like Mr. Boyd and others, current and past, who try to discredit any and all efforts of the Civic organization acting on behalf its membership. These same people wish to muzzle certain groups that dare to question government policies or policy makers’ decisions.

Some bureaucrats and elected officials perceive Civic to be “negative” because of what they read in Civics’ Chatline newsletter. In most cases what they are reading is nothing more than a report on their own public comments and votes. The Civic Association deals with issues and that is primarily what we write about. If what is being read is perceived by these individuals as being negative then what they are really concluding is that their votes are negatively affecting our community.

In some cases Chatline reports on the proceedings at city council meetings. Most observers would agree that some meetings have been pretty ugly as a result of the conduct of some city council members including, Mr. Boyd’s unprofessional contributions and possible misuse of public office during these meetings. If what is being read in Chatline by Mr. Boyd and others regarding their behavior during public meetings is perceived as being negative then maybe they need a reality check in proper decorum. Mr. Boyd should have far more concern about the unprofessional behavior of himself and others, as witnessed on Cape TV, than what Civic could possibly report in our newsletter. Council member Boyd’s own personal attacks from the council dais on members of the public have not gone unnoticed.

While some elected officials are quick to single out Civic for “negativity” they, including Mr. Boyd, remained mute when members of the CCCIA, the Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce and the Council for Progress joined in a group called the Coalition for Better Government and presented a program that maligned and discredited other members of the elected body at that time. The Coalition's targets were Council members LePera and Stevens and then Mayor Kempe. Their irrational conclusion is obvious. It’s okay when the Chamber, CCCIA and the Council for Progress are critical of elected officials, but it’s not okay for Civic to express any criticism toward A.J. Boyd and his “friends.”

Civic has no problem in not being linked to the taxpayer supported city web page, since we believe the only links that should appear on the city web page are other governmental web sites. This is the same position that Civic took on Feb. 14, 2000 when Mr. Boyd and others failed to support a motion for the city council to create such a policy. At the time “politics as usual” prevailed and allowed the city to link to other non governmental sites such as; CC Association of Realtors, CCCIA and the CC Chamber of Commerce. Anyone wishing to locate any organization on the Internet can simply do so by typing in the organization name on their Internet browser just like they can with the Cape Coral Civic Association.