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Council OKs return of Cape Coral Days trip to Tallahassee

By Staff | Sep 28, 2016

In a surprise move during its legislative agenda discussion Monday night, City Council voted 4-3 to bring back the Cape Coral Days trip to Tallahassee to meet with state legislators.

The local initiative grew over the years to become Lee County Days and eventually Southwest Florida Days. Some on council thought Cape Coral’s needs have been shoved to the background within the bigger picture of the region and the city needs to make a separate trip. It was not decided whether or not to continue participating in the regional initiative.

Councilmember Jim Burch, who cast one of the three dissenting votes along with Mayor Marni Sawicki Retzer and John Carioscia, said he wasn’t sure why the subject even came up.

“I don’t know what’s going on up here. This wasn’t on the agenda for discussion,” Burch said. “I voted no because I don’t have enough information or had discussions with anyone about it. There was a lot of thinking out loud up here and I think we embarrassed ourselves tonight.”

Retzer brought up the idea of exempting fully disabled military veterans from paying the city’s Fire Service Assessment (FSA) by adding it to the legislative platform.

Councilmember Rana Erbrick cautioned about unintended consequences at the state level that would impact every other municipality in the state with an FSA.

“That is revenue we are asking them to take out of every city in the state,” Erbrick said. “It’s a fabulous idea, but there are ramifications we need to think long and hard about. I’d prefer for us to do it under Home Rule if we can, locally”

It was suggested to get an updated opinion from bond consultant attorney Chris Rowe before going ahead with the exemption at the state level.

City Manager John Szerlag said there are 613 properties in the city owned by disabled veterans and using the city’s formula the exemption would cost the city about $200,000 out of the total FSA revenue of $22.6 million.

Council’s next regular meeting is not until Monday, Oct. 17, but the panel will hold a special workshop session on Wed-nesday, Oct. 5, at the Nicholas Annex building.