If you are you’ll have one more chance to speak your mind at the town council meeting Monday morning at 9AM. Councilman Dan Allers believes residents never really had a chance to provide any input on the increase and he wants to give them one more opportunity to share their thoughts with the council.
This month, all public parking spaces owned by the town will go from costing $3.00 per hour to $5.00 per hour. The town owns parking spaces under the bridge and along Old San Carlos Boulevard, among other areas on the beach. Lee County owns Lynn Hall Park where the fee is $2.00 per hour, and will not change.
Councilman Bill Veach said revisiting this means “they could go up as well.”
The council also raised the application fee for vacation rentals from $50.00 to $300.00.
Both fee increases will go into effect on January 1, 2022.
When has public comment ever swayed the Council in changing their minds on anything the public wants.
They don’t care what the public thinks.
Until the town manager, town attorney and most of the town council are fired and replaced, nothing will change.
The beatings will continue until moral improves. 🥵
We have been coming to the island for many years, bought a condo a few years back and just a few months bought a home. Our welcome to the island was being threatened by a town employee named Bill Stout with a summons and being dragged into court. He left my wife crying and refused to listen while he continued to berate us with a false allegation. He refused to listen. He even filed the false allegation that was promptly withdrawn by the building department. We are faced with a broken system for the highest building permit rates in the area and a permit process that take month to get a permit for even the simplest of projects. I have no problem complying but I do not need to be treated like a child. Constant warnings of fines yet the building permit process does not even follow their own rules.
I will have to consider moving to avoid the harassing nature of people like Bill Stout, obviously under the support of the town board.
I do not understand how the council justifies a six-fold increase in the fee to register a rental property. That registration process was approved so that the Town could locate property owners should a complaint about renters be lodged. How many times did that actually happen since the registration process was initiated? Is the staff so overwhelmed by the paperwork that the Town needs more money to maintain the bureaucracy? A six-fold increase in one year!!!
It’s just crazy
Dear Seamus, please copy & paste your comment to the same post on the BTR page. You make excellent points.
I cannot, sir, but you are welcome to copy & paste with quotes if you so desire. Appreciate the kind words.
What Seamus said! A spot-on, 100% correct synopsis.
Good comments here, all. I think what people need to keep in mind is Veach’s (and others on the council) motivation. Veach is “for the beach,” but he’s “for the beach the way it used to be. . .” That is, light traffic, fewer visitors, single-story homes, ecologically friendly, etc. Veach ran for all of the “lifers” on the island who want Fort Myers Beach to hearken back to the old days of the swing bridge, small Mom & Pop bars and restaurants, motels, and fishing & shrimp boats. You see, Bill (& others on the council) are fully retired. They don’t need or want the excessive traffic, activity, and yes sometimes trouble that comes along with being a popular destination for tourists. What they fail to understand is that those tourism dollars underwrite many of the expenses required to run this town. For them, their retirement fund, pensions, whatever are enough for them to live on and therefore don’t care as much about the tourism industry and the revenue it generates for this island. They’d just as soon drive through light traffic to an uncrowded restaurant, not have to wait for a table, and then go home. Perhaps their memory is too short to recall driving down a virtually deserted Estero Blvd 18 months ago and go by the Harry Chapin Food Bank trailer handing out food and essentials to hospitality workers affected by the closings on the island due to COVID. The bottom line is that the Council members should keep in mind that they represent ALL the residents of this island. And that includes many of the hospitality workers who live here as well as the owners of the hotels, motels, vacation rentals, bars, and restaurants. To the Council: stop worrying about what Sanibel is doing. We are not Sanibel. You want to be like Sanibel? Move to Sanibel!
Perfect! Raising the fees because that’s what Sanibel does is not a good reason.
$50.00 up to $300.00 for application fee for rental properties? Are you nuts? Have you ever heard is small increments? How about $50.00 going up to $75 or $100? But up to $300.00. Same way with your huge increase in parking. Tourism is what keeps the island going and it seems like you are trying to ruin that! What in the world are you thinking? A big fat No on both.
Agreed!
Great comments from this mornings posters and Norman Paperman regarding Bill “not for the beach” Veach. Veach needs to be voted out of office, his politics are out of whack. As for parking fees our hourly rate should be in line with other municipalities in Lee County and SW Florida. Unless the goal is to dissuade visitors and chase customers and businesses off the island.
If you can provide proof of Fort Myers Beach residency, you can get a parking pass. https://www.fortmyersbeachfl.gov/DocumentCenter/View/10744/Residential-Parking-Permit-Form?bidId=
It sounds like we have Gavin Newsom who does not care about making it easier for people to do business or the Island we live on making decisions that effect us all
What a deterrent for welcoming tourists and locals to enjoy and dine at places on the north end. I live and work on this island that I love but will be looking for another island to love soon. I will not pay 10/15 for parking and then 30 to dine. Are we open for business or not?
When will people realize just how anti-island Veach is? Parking and rental fee’s he wants to raise, amber lighting that will cost a gazllion dollars, masks for all, ordinance for everything under the sun, no dune walkover (again more money wasted by the town), did I mention masks for all?…. no electric anything on the beach – don’t run towards the birds and on and on and on… Makes me want to puke. All he wants is to deter people from coming here and does everything he can so deter island businesses from being successful. Did anyone hear the MRTF meeting yesterday?? I thought I was listening to an HOA meeting. These people want to control every aspect of every property on the beach – it’s really sick.
Downtown fort myers .25 per hour. Downtown Naples free. Downtown Cape Coral free. So tell me again how 5.00 makes sense? Oh that’s right our leaders copy Sanibel. So do as Sanibel does because we have followers not leaders.
Comments are closed.