Cops pushing cart ordinance, but commissioner wants to listen to the people

Despite overwhelming opposition from Boca Grande residents, Lee County officials say they intend to push ahead with a revised ordinance requiring operators of golf carts on county roads to be at least 16 years old and to be licensed drivers.

Steve Jansen, a traffic engineer with Lee County’s Department of Transportation, said that the ordinance has been given to a county attorney for revision.

“The ordinance has been cut way back from the original,” he said. “The part requiring seat belts and safety seats has been taken out, but the age and driver’s license stipulation is still in there. That’s because the sheriff’s office has the biggest problem with that one.”

The original proposed changes included that all drivers of golf carts must be 16 years of age and hold a valid driver’s license, that the number of occupants in the cart is restricted to the number of seats, no one is allowed to stand in the cart at any time while it is moving, and all laws applying to secured child safety seats in passenger vehicles would also apply to golf carts. The ordinance changes also requires all golf cart drivers to hold liability insurance.

While all golf carts may operate during daylight hours provided they have proper brakes, reliable steering, safe tires, a rearview mirror and red reflectors on both the front and the rear of the cart, only carts equipped with headlights, brake lights, turn signals and windshields will be allowed to use county roadways at night. This ordinance is only applicable to Lee County roadways. It does not apply to the Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association path.

Jansen said he has received 41 emails so far about the ordinance. Two were from residents of Captiva.

“About 75 percent of the comments say to just leave it alone, that they are happy with what we’ve got now for an ordinance,” he said. “People have to understand, though, that this is a county-wide ordinance, not just for Boca Grande.”

According to Harry Campbell, the chief engineer for Lee County DOT, the ordinance changes came at the request of the sheriff’s office. He also said that, to his knowledge, the problems addressed in the revised ordinance are a result of problems in Captiva, not Boca Grande.

“There are a lot of young drivers who don’t know the proper driving etiquette or rules of the road,” he said. “They have had problems on Captiva with that, particularly at night. Right now, we are in the process of coming up with specific wording and exact language, to make sure we do this right.”

Commissioner Bob Janes represents Boca Grande. He was not available for comment. His administrative assistant Nan Summerall-Gonzales said that their office has received numerous comments on the issue. Because the final ordinance draft has not been finished yet, she said that Janes would not comment at this time.

Summerall-Gonzales also said that the proposed ordinance had come at the request of the Sheriff’s Office, particularly with plans for new cart paths on Captiva.

“A lot of this ordinance has to do with golf carts crossing from course to course on public roads on Captiva,” she said. “Captiva and Boca Grande are very different. Captiva is just now building their cart paths.”

Commissioner Tammy Hall, who was on the island last weekend to attend the spaghetti dinner at the Crowninshield Community House, said she is just now getting into the facts of the matter.

“The sheriff’s office doesn’t have the authority to pass the ordinance, we do,” said Hall. “When you have a non-licensed vehicle on a public right of way the sheriff has the ability to do some things with that, yes. But we don’t have to approve the sheriff’s recommendations. If it was in his authority to do this, he wouldn’t have to come to us.“

Hall isn’t the only one who feels that way. When Republican candidate for Lee County Sheriff Rod Shoap visited Boca Grande on Thursday, he agreed that the voices of island residents are not being listened to within Lee County government.

“There is a real important document that starts out with ‘We the people,’” Shoap said. “The sheriff doesn’t own the people, he is the people’s sheriff. What’s driving him (Sheriff Mike Scott) to want this so bad? Everything the department is doing right now is traffic-related, yet crime is through the roof and fatal accidents haven’t decreased.”

Hall fielded numerous questions pertaining to the proposed ordinance changes when she was on the island. One person who approached her, though, made the most impact because he was so directly affected by the proposed changes.

Parker O’Bannon, an island 14-year-old, circulated a petition on the proposed golf cart ordinance at the spaghetti supper. At 14, even though he has been driving a golf cart since he was a small child, he will lose the privilege of driving a cart on most of the island if the changes are adopted. He considers the cart a vital tool in his job and in helping out his family.

O’Bannon said that he helped out around the house by taking the younger children by golf cart to the school to play, and also by running errands for his parents. Now that it’s tarpon season, when Parker gets up at 3:30 a.m. to go to his job as a mate on a fishing boat, his mother will have to take him if he can’t drive the cart.

When he realized that the threat of not having a golf cart to use for work was more than just a possibility, he decided to take action on his own and started the petition. The spaghetti supper was his first attempt, and he got more than 80 signatures.

“There was only one person out of all of them I asked that said they agreed with it,” Parker said. “The people of Lee County are represented by the commissioners, at least sort of. I would hope that they decide to do what’s right and listen to the people.”

When Parker had a chance to speak with Hall at the dinner on Sunday, his words apparently made a difference.

“Parker, and many others, really feel that there is an ordinance in place already, and if it was enforced a lot of the golf cart issues would be addressed,” she said. “Almost everyone told me that we don’t need an additional ordinance. Parker did say to me that if there is an issue of compliance, just like with boaters there could be a golf cart safety course. He said that he didn’t think that anyone would be opposed to that, from what he has heard.”

She paused and said, “I don’t know, there are a lot of questions I don’t have answers to right now. I’m going to have to peel back the onion on this. I have not had an opportunity to speak with DOT staff, and I’m not really sure if there’s specific repetitive problems they have had. I want to know, is this more of a Captiva issue than a Boca Grande issue?”

Hall also said that because there has been no discussion on the matter for quite some time among the commissioners, she didn’t think that the facts were known by many. She said she will be doing a little homework, including checking golf cart accident reports for the last few years and talking to people on both sides of the issue.

“I don’t think it’s on the radar of the commissioners, it’s still with the staff,” she said. “It will eventually come forward to the commissioners and we’ll make a determination then. I encouraged Parker to send a letter along with the signatures on the petition to all the commissioners, and to state that there is a concern about this on Boca Grande. Meanwhile, I’m going to find out who is pushing this forward so much. I’m not convinced we need to make a change, but the sheriff’s office will have their opportunity to present to the commissioners why they feel they should have this passed. We will also provide an opportunity for folks from Boca Grande to speak, or read letters at the public meeting, to hear both sides of the issue.”

Parker plans to put copies of the petition at Hudson’s Grocery for those who didn’t have a chance to sign at the spaghetti dinner. He can also be reached at 964-0539.

Residents will have to wait until June to find out what their next bill for iguana control will be, after numbers were left out of the fiscal year budget for 2009 at the latest meeting of the Boca Grande “streetlighting and iguana tax” board.

According to Libby Walker, director of Lee County Public Resources, when the panel was discussing how much tax money would be needed over and above what would be left over in the program’s coffers from 2008, she forgot to include numbers from a loan the panel took out to complete iguana control this year.

“I had a wrong number,” Walker said. “As a result, the committee is going to meet again in June to look again at the numbers and make a recommendation.”

Walker said that the amount the panel decided on at the May 7 meeting, which was $25,000, was too low due to the error. She did give hope to taxpayers by saying they could still expect a significant reduction from the amount paid in a special assessment earlier this year.

“That amount, $25,000, is not correct,” Walker said. “I hadn’t deducted the final payment from what we had left over in the fund. It doesn’t show up as a budget line item, and I forgot to put it in there manually, so I gave them an inflated carry-over number. We still expect, though, to be able to reduce the assessment from this past January.”

Walker said the fund currently holds approximately $123,000, with the peak season for iguana-catching just around the corner and still not paid for.

“If George collects 4,000 iguanas this summer, that would be $80,000 to pay out between now and end of the fiscal year,” she said.

Wednesday’s meeting almost couldn’t be held because of a lack of quorum on the panel. With the departure of Chairman Bonnie McGee, as well as Beverly Furtado and Peter Sholley’s not coming back when their terms were up, panel member John Bourgoin had planned to resign as well. Once he discussed that decision with several of the people that are involved in the program, though, he rescinded his resignation.

“I am staying on because I was asked to,” he said. “Even George Cera asked me to stay. They are afraid if they get someone else, a person who may not know what has been going on here for the last two years. So, for now, they have twisted my arm and I am going to stay.”

Bourgoin has continued to be a driving force in the lizard battle, on occasion even taking out an iguana or two himself with a pellet gun.

Boca Grande resident Dick Ryan started his new position on the panel at this week’s meeting, making a quorum. As far as a lack of a chairman, panel member Ron Gutman said it isn’t a necessary position to name.

“We don’t need to have a chairman, per say, we’ll just go with what we’re doing,” he said. “We can have someone just be a moderator at the meetings and not formalize it. Hopefully we can get five member back on the panel, and not have a chair unless something happens that we need one.”

Walker also said that as of May 1, liens were put on the properties of those who didn’t pay the special assessment.

“We still haven’t received $6,000,” she said. “We went for $120,000, so we’re doing pretty well. Overall we got an excellent response. We were depending on the island to do this, and we got $114,000.”

Panel member Ron Gutman agreed.

“I would consider that response to be an editorial comment endorsing what we’re doing,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that everyone is happy with having to foot the bill, but it seems to speak to the fact that people are generally happy with what we’re doing. I consider this amount a home run.”

Lyman Randall, a resident of the Charlotte County portion of the island and the chairman of their iguana MSBU, gave a report on their progress with the United States Department of Agriculture doing the lizard hunting there.

Randall said that Charlotte County is preparing to do a baseline study to determine an iguana head count in that area. Gutman said that Lee County, too, would have to get to that point eventually as well, in order to complete the information necessary for possible government funding.

“We’ve had more than three months of experience with the USDA and Parker Hall,” Randall said. “Each catch has been examined to see what kind of bait in the traps works better, and how many eggs, if any, they are carrying. Parker reported that there has been roughly 3,000 eggs in those that have been trapped.”

Randall said that the USDA has taken two groups containing 20 iguanas each to set up a nesting ground so they can study their habits to obtain useful trapping information.

“Parker said that in those iguanas he has trapped, particularly in February through mid-March, there is evidence that they breed much earlier than they assumed,” Randall said. “So catching them, even in cold weather, is a big plus.”

George Cera, the iguana trapper in the Lee County portion of the island, also gave a report on his progress.

“We’re not seeing as many large animals as we used to,” Cera said. “It’s telling me we’re moving along. I just removed an animal that was the size of my hand. When I did a stomach content study on her, I found 28 eggs. They’re breeding small now. Also, last year out of every 10 animals caught we were getting seven or eight females. Now, it’s reversed.”

Cera also reported that someone had smashed or stolen over $10,000 of equipment at the south end of the island’s public parks, and that he couldn’t place them in highly-populated areas anymore.

Gutman also told the panel that at a recent meeting of Lee County Commissioners, Commissioner Bob Janes brought up matter of Boca Grande residents having to pay for iguana eradication because it isn’t considered a “core level of service.”

“The idea he brought up was that some time ago, when this all started, Janes said that the commissioners could do nothing, but perhaps somewhere in the future they would participate,” Gutman said. “He suggested at the recent meeting that the problem was clearly not just a Boca Grande problem, but a central and southern Florida problem. Janes told the commissioners that assistance would be needed in Lee County in the future. So it is not a dead issue, they have not thrown it out the window. That is not the case. The wheels just turn very slowly. We would like to see Lee County become our partner, and now that the subject is alive it is incumbent on us to keep it alive and in front of them. We need to figure out how to do this.”

Bourgoin agreed, stating that he has seen iguanas on three different area golf courses, near the hospital in Englewood and on River Road as well.

“It looks to me like it isn’t just Boca Grande business, but a state or federal problem we’re facing now,” he said. “Soon, we’re going to be submerged with these animals.”

The next amount collected for iguana eradication will appear on resident tax notices in October, and will be listed in the section along with trash collection taxes. There will be a public hearing scheduled for some time this summer, and the next tentative meeting for June 2 at 2 p.m. in the Boca Grande Community Center Auditorium.

There are still two vacancies on the iguana panel. Contact Libby Walker’s office at (239) 533-2120 for applications. According to Walker, anyone has an interest in serving on the board would be appreciated.