At the August meeting of the Captiva Community Panel, the subcommittee that was formed at last month’s meeting with the responsibility of selecting a candidate to assist with drafting the land development code for Captiva, announced that they had selected David Depew of Morris-Depew Associates, Inc.

Over the past month, the subcommittee – consisting of Harry Silverglide, Mike Kelly and Rene Miville – reviewed five different proposals from five local planners.

“We had search criteria – experience, depth of organization, prior relationship with the CCP, prior relationships with Captiva and cost, because we’re running on a very tight budget,” explained SIlverglide.

“We were able to narrow the field down to two finalists and after Rene and I went and spent an hour and a half in person, face to face, with the last two proposed planners, we came to a unanimous decision,” he continued.

At that point in the meeting, Silverglide brought Kelly in via conference call to explain the drafting process and to announce the winning candidate.

“We would approach it in kind of a three-pronged way. The first element of the effort would be a draft of the code,” Kelly said, noting that after a preliminary draft was created, the second part of the process would involve interested residents having the opportunity to read through and comment upon the draft.

“The third part, obviously, would be getting a final draft to the County,” Kelly said.

Five candidates submitted proposals, but the group was whittled down to two by the committee based on the specific criteria.

Both Kelly and Silverglide agreed that the people who responded with proposals had a variety of valuable skills, but only only one could do the job.

“We selected David Depew for a number of reasons. He has a long familiarity with Captiva, he had original assistance in completing the Captiva plan – so he knows what we’re after in terms of developing a code for that plan – he’s worked with Boca Grande and other barrier islands so he has a skill set in that [and] he has a great reputation with the county,” Kelly explained.

“We believe our choice is an excellent one,” Kelly said.

The panel was unanimous in accepting the subcommittee’s decision and expecting to have a draft ready by October, to be finalized and submitted to the County by the Spring of 2010.

The Captiva Community Panel will meet again on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 9 a.m. in the Wakefield Room at ‘Tween Waters Inn, located at 15951 Captiva Drive.

You can read more about the panel on their Web site, www.captivacommunitypanel.com.