In sharp contrast to the Fort Myers Beach Fire District's first budget hearing held two hours before, residents attending the Town Council's first hearing on the budget were happy when council lowered the tentative millage rate from the proposed 1 mil to .9144. One property owner even went so far as to thank the council and staff for making the process easy to understand. During the meeting, Mayor Kiker also reminded everyone that Wednesday, September 21st is ‘Tax Day' at Town Hall so anyone with questions about any of our local taxing districts should come down and meet with representatives from those districts.

The council meeting began with the Consent Agenda, where council agreed to give the Baywalk Group and SIK Promotions a special event permit application for the 2010 Pirate Festival - scheduled for October 8-10, 2010.

On the Administrative Agenda, council discussed the start date of the beach renourishment project. At issue was a communication from Lee County Natural Resourses Steve Boutelle, who - despite telling the council when they signed the new Interlocal Agreement in June that construction would begin by the end of the year (see Sand Paper Issue 489, June 25, 2010) - emailed Town Manager Terry Stewart that the project may actually be delayed until after May of 2011.

"The reason you have this in front of you is because of an email from Mr. Boutelle, saying that is was his understanding that it was the Town's preference to delay the start of this project until after May,” said Stewart. "I was unaware of that, and thought it best to clarify that and ask you to help me give them your actual preference.”

Mandel wanted to know when is the soonest the county could start, saying he wanted to know the nature of disruptions when they do start.

"I'm no expert, but if I look at the process of Request For Proposal (RFP) - which can run parallel with permitting - they might be able to start at end or shortly thereafter the new year,” Stewart answered. "There will be construction, certain areas of beach cordoned off, so a 100' property might be disrupted for a couple of days, but the entire project will last 3-4 months.”

Stewart also mentioned that some areas of the north end are in dire need of renourishment.

Councilman Babcock expressed frustration over the fact that something council agreed to in June is being pushed back.

"Start that project as soon as possible,” he said.

Several residents spoke up in agreement during public comment.

"It's been almost 3 months since June 21st when we gave approval, where Mr. Boutelle said he'd have it done by the end of the year,” said Frank Schilling. "I thought it was pretty clear what we wanted.”

Carleton Ryffel spoke next, reading a letter he intends to send to Commissioner Ray Judah where he states that he believes the economic impact will be worse than that of the oil spill.

Beach Chamber President John Albion urged the council to be the ‘squeaky wheel', saying, "First of all, you can expedite permits, it takes pressure and phone calls from elected officials, not staff. If commission joined forces, additional pressure.”

"It's time that government started taking care of the businesses.”

After all the councilmembers expressed frustration with how long the project was taking, Kiker directed Stewart to send a letter to Mr. Boutelle and to the county commission asking that the beach renourishment project be moved along as quickly as possible, that the Town expects a response within a week as to what they were going to do to satisfy that demand, and requesting a progress report so that council can keep track of the county's progress.

"I'm going to remind you of another project - the dredging at Laguna Shores - where we went through the permitting process with the DEP and vacated common sense,” he said.

"I made contact with our lobbyist last week and asked him about Laguna Shores, and he told me there's been a change in command at the DEP,” Kiker continued. "Mr. Peebles told me that he knows this individual, so if staff could produce a document about this issue and one for Laguna Shores, it might help move things along.”

Next, the council heard the first of four public hearings.

Skye's Restaurant Special Exception

"This is a matter that was heard by the LPA, who presented a resolution so that the restaurant can have a full liquor license and serve outside the restaurant,” Stewart explained. "The LPA recommended that the alcohol be confined to the enclosed breezeway area where they already serve beer/wine and food. Music and other entertainment must be contained between 10am and 10pm.”

The motion passed 5-0.

Amending Chapter 34 of the LDC, Parking Regulations

"This came out of the LPA at the behest of council originally, and this focuses on some changes that were necessary to address some temporary parking facilities, one item of which is how long we allow it to exist as temporary,” explained Stewart, and council agreed to move the item to a second hearing on September 20th.

First Public Hearing to Adopt Millage Rate

"This is a resolution adopting the tentative operating millage rate at 1.48% less than the rollback rate,” said Town Clerk Michelle Mayher, and Stewart explained that the final hearing will be on September 20th.

"The council set a tentative rate of 1 mil, which is above the existing rate, and above the roll forward rate. Staff has brought this down from the roll forward rate of .9281 to .9144. The dollar difference between last year's rate of .8187 and this is $250,063.”

Council agreed to lower the tentative mil rate from 1.0 to .9144 and moved the item to the next Public Hearing on September 20th.

First Public Hearing on the Budget

"This is a budget where staff took all the changes requested from your last workshop, refined it and reduced the amount so we could reduce the millage rate,” said Stewart. "The gap between getting down to the current millage rate is a $250,063 difference. The Town could take money from reserves, carve some things even further, or take money from unused beach renourishment funds.”

Town Clerk Michelle Mayher then passed out a brochure clearly outlining the Town's budget, complete with an explanation of all CIP projects, future budget considerations, charts of a complete tax bill and all taxes collected by the Town since incorporation and a budget summary. This incredibly easy to understand document - created by Finance Director Evelyn Wicks - is available at Town Hall or by going to this story on our website - http://www.islandsandpaper.com/ and clicking the link at the end.

The only speaker during public comment was Lee Melsek, who thanked the Town for it's efficiency.

"I came here from the fire district budget hearings, and this place is a cakewalk compared to them,” he said. "There is a huge difference between how they do their budget and how you do yours with public workshops, and we thank you for that.”

A couple of other residents had questions about their entire tax bill, and were directed to Town staff for explanation.

List asked if the extra beach renourishment funds are on the table for this year's budget, and Babcock responded by mentioning the workshop to be held the morning of September 20th on what to spend that money on this year.

Babcock pointed out that taxes levied at this mil is less than total taxes levied 2 years ago, and Stewart thanked the council on behalf of the staff for giving them clear direction as to where they needed to go.

Council agreed 5-0 to move the budget to the next public hearing on September 20th.

During Town Manager's Items, Council turned down a request from the Beach Library for landscape revisions after the town attorney explained that it is against the Land Development Code to issue permits for vegetation in the Right of Way (ROW).

Finally, council agreed to make Alan Mandel the new liason with the Horizon Council, a duty he will begin in October.

The next meeting of the Town Council of Fort Myers Beach will be Monday, September 20th at 6:30pm. The next workshop is scheduled for that morning at 9am, and the scheduled discussion topic is what to do with the unused CIP funds that had been set aside for a full scale beach renourishment.