Do our actions reflect the voice of the people? That was the question as spirited debate broke out once again over one-way parking and the Boca Grande Community Planning Panel survey at the Friday, Dec. 7 meeting of the Boca Grande Community Planning Panel.
Toward the end of the meeting the panel was discussing the fact that last season’s meetings had become more of a negative than pro-active situation, and panel member Dave McHugh attempted to explain why – because many on the island felt that their opinions given in the survey sent out by the panel in 2004 did not reflect the panel’s actions, and, more specifically, because the one-way street proposal was still being discussed.
“The reason why one-way streets was such an argumentative thing was because it was so overwhelmingly denied by the survey,” McHugh said. “A lot of people thought that the idea for the survey was the fact that you couldn’t take a public meeting, bring 15 to 20 people into it, and make it seem like the whole town wanted to do something.”
“If you look at the traffic engineer’s statistics in terms of conflict resolution, there was a legitimate argument for one-way streets,” Stevenson countered. “But it was too much of a change and I don’t think Boca Grande is there yet.”
“We went down and pushed for the historic panel and said the community overwhelmingly wanted it,” McHugh said. “Then the community overwhelmingly said they didn’t want one-way streets, and the panel still pushed for it. That’s an issue.”
“We didn’t push for it, we listened to the facts,” Stevenson said. “You have to listen to the facts, be objective, and you have to listen to your constituency.”
McHugh replied, “Well, we didn’t. The survey didn’t support it, the survey is our mandate. When we implement things on the panel, we have to stick to the survey. We spent so much time on something that no one asked us to do.”
Stevenson then said that fault could be put on the local media.
“The person that blew it out of proportion was Gary Dutery at the Boca Beacon,” he said. “Time that was spent on it was in the Boca Beacon, blowing it out of proportion. We have one-way street examples in Arcadia … we want to look at all the options. We decided that it was not what our constituency wanted.”
“It shouldn’t have been brought up at all,” McHugh said. “Why are we taking something up again that people overwhelmingly didn’t want to do?”
“Because we’re not traffic engineers,” Stevenson replied. “We have to look at what experts tell us and suggest, and we want to look at all the options.”
“If every time we go forward with things on this panel, are we going to look at that survey and take into consideration what the people asked us to do or not do?” McHugh asked.
“We will be guided by the survey, but at the same time we will also be guided by the suggestions that our consultants have made,” Stevenson said. “It’s important and responsible to look at all the suggestions that the consultants make. And it’s really not worth discussing anymore.”
Lynn Seibert added, “The survey is well and good, but it was done in May of 2004. That was before we had 2,000 more condo units out there on Cape Haze. We knew there was growth coming, but I had no idea how fast that was going to be built. That’s affecting traffic, and one of the reasons we were looking at this was to find out what is our road capacity, and what happens when we exceed it? At what point in time does 6,000, 8,000, 10,000 cars a day going through Park Avenue make it impassable? That’s how that whole one-way street thing got started.”
“We took three meetings and we got absolutely nothing accomplished because we were very boldly told the people didn’t want one-way streets,” McHugh said. “Look at the time we spent on that. It dominated all of last year. As we move forward, we need to make sure we’re doing what people ask us to do, so we don’t end up spending meeting after meeting on something.”
In other business, Panel Consultant Tom Smith recommended that one of the panel’s first priorities was to get started on plans for the future planning advisory committee that will implement the community plan. He said that the good news was that he had already spoken to Jeffrey Ruggieri, Charlotte County’s director of Growth Management, and gotten positive feedback. The bad news is that there is no funding available.
“The funding situation has turned upside down,” Smith said. “I do not see any possibility of getting funding right now. They really don’t have community planning in their budget right now. I don’t want to discourage anybody, if they want to write letters to the commissioners directly, but I want to warn you right now it probably won’t be a successful effort. We’re one of the few community plans that is still evolving, still active. We’ll keep them knowledgeable of what we’re doing, so if something does happen we’ll be first in line.”
Smith said that while he was in favor of retaining all the remaining panel members to serve on the planning advisory committee, he also suggested that the two positions that needed to be filled (Mark Spurgeon, a panel member, is leaving as well as Stevenson) should be filled by Charlotte County residents.
“If you change the entire makeup of the panel right now, you might have people making changes to the plan. That doesn’t need to happen,” Smith said. “It has gone through sufficient public exposure and adoption, and it makes sense for people who know the plan to continue on with the implementation. Here’s what I believe will be our advantage – try to get more Charlotte County representatives.”
Smith also said that while Ruggieri is new to his position, he told Smith to submit a suggestion and “see what flies,” and that he was optimistic the plan would work.
“We need to do this as fast as we can,” Seibert said. “I want to get this done as quickly as possible … we can’t wait six months.”
Smith agreed, and said that he would like to see more representation from the major stakeholders in Charlotte County – the Boca Grande Club, the Boca Grande Resort and the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority.
“We’re not going to have a lot of credibility in Charlotte County unless we pretty much make it 50-50,” Stevenson said.
On Wednesday, Dec. 12, the panel issued a statement that explains how residents can submit an application to become part of the panel.
Copies of the form for application will be made available on Monday, Dec. 17 as well as at the next panel meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 19. Copies will be available at the Reference Room of the Boca Grande Community Center and at the Boca Grande Club reception area.
Forms must be returned no later than Friday, Jan. 4, in the hopes that new members can be chosen at the panel meeting to be held on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008. They should be mailed to Lynne Seibert at P.O. Box 1707, Boca Grande FL 33921. The form will also be posted on the panel’s website, www.bocagrandeplanning.org for download.
The statement reads, “It is hoped that considerably more than two Charlotte County residents will volunteer in case the Charlotte board of county commissioners requires a greater number of Charlotte County residents for the planning advisory committee. In this event there would have to be a panel and an advisory committee whose members would not be the same, but we hope that this situation will not come to pass. Having a list of interested Charlotte County residents will, of course, be helpful in any event.”
Another topic of discussion at the meeting was raised by panel member Dr. Bill Heisel, who made a suggestion to set a public meeting and let the community know what work the panel has done so far.
“Shouldn’t we be thinking of making a presentation of our work to the community?” he said. “They’ve been supportive of us, and we should get on the Community Center calendar and be able to tell them what we’ve done so far. I think it’s something we’re going to have to do.”
Smith said that more information would need to be obtained before that meeting took place.
“We did reach out right before the community plan went for adoption,” he said. “Now we don’t have a whole lot more information. On the Charlotte County side I’d like to get some more concrete stuff out there. I think the same goes for lee County.”
Stevenson agreed.
“I think it’s a great idea, but you’re probably talking about something that would be better in mid-April or something like that,” he said. “We need to get the implementation strategy going, get it moving. A meeting like this needs to be content-driven, and there isn’t any content right now.”
Panel member Ted Hoopes said that he was more than proud of what had been accomplished so far.
“We started out with two community plans, and we’ve done that,” he said. “Boca Grande never had a particularly good relationship with Lee County, or with Charlotte. We’ve gone to these commissioners and established a relationship. I think a great thing has happened here. I think this whole thing brought the community together like it had never been before. I think we accomplished a great deal.”
Finally, the panel voted unanimously to elect Lynn Seibert as the new chairman to the panel when Stevenson leaves at the end of the year.
The next meeting of the Boca Grande Community Planning Panel will take place on Wednesday, Dec. 19 from 2 – 5 p.m. at the Amory Chapel. Ted Treesch, the traffic consultant from TR Transportation who conducted studies on and off the island, is expected to be present to give his full report. Also to be discussed at the meeting will be further discussion of the Charlotte County Planning Advisory Committee, discussion of the Mercabo marine property and a discussion of the document clearing house situation.
