Captivating Quandary
To the editor:
154: That is the number of Florida special districts that have been dissolved since 2018.
Not all were dissolved for the same reason, and this is not a suggestion that the Captiva Erosion Prevention District is presently facing dissolution. But the number should give its constituents pause. Special districts are not permanent simply because the communities they serve value them. Florida maintains formal processes for their oversight, inactivity, and dissolution.
For Captiva, CEPD has a home-rule effect. It allows the community to elect its own governing board to address an issue uniquely important to the island and gives that board the authority to tax and assess property within the district to carry out that responsibility. Its enabling legislation places the preservation of Captiva’s beaches and shoreline largely in the hands of people elected by the residents of the community. That is meaningful local self-government.
If we believe decisions are best made close to the people affected by them, then we must also accept responsibility for the quality of those decisions and the institutions in which we place our trust. Florida law makes that expectation clear. The Legislature states that independent special districts should not outlive their usefulness and that their operation should be consistent with due process, disclosure, accountability, ethics and government-in-the-sunshine requirements.
The concerns now before this community reach back to at least 2018. Eight former CEPD employees have now spoken publicly about their experiences with the district. The record is there for anyone who wishes to examine it. The question now is what you do with it.
With an election approaching, Captiva finds itself at an ethical crossroads. Not because everyone must reach the same conclusion about every allegation, every commissioner or every event, but because you now have considerably more information than you did before.
Captiva is a small community. That is one of its great strengths, but it can also make public governance complicated. Our neighbors are our friends. The people we conduct business with are often the same people we see socially. Relationships cross between the personal, professional and public spheres in ways that would be unusual in a larger community. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.
There is, however, a point at which we must ask whether those relationships are affecting the standards we expect from our government. We have spent considerable time discussing the conduct expected of public officials. Maybe this is now an appropriate moment to discuss the responsibility of the people who choose them.
Voting is an individual act of conscience.
It should require us to put aside friendship, convenience, access, influence and whatever personal benefit we might associate with the outcome. That brings us to the uncomfortable moral questions.
Should members of one household occupy two out of five seats on a governing board?
Am I basing my vote on an issue that is completely unrelated to the district’s purpose?
Would I make the same decision if this person was not my friend or if I did no business with them?
Would I make the same decision if I expected no access, consideration, accommodation or favor in return?
Would I make the same decision if nobody ever knew how I voted?
Would I accept the same conduct if the people involved were strangers to me?
That is far more difficult than deciding whose account we prefer. A community cannot demand ethical government while exempting itself from ethical reflection. Nor can accountability mean only asking whether a public official technically violated a law. There is a much larger space between what is illegal and what is acceptable. Character, judgment, professionalism, respect for institutional boundaries and stewardship of the public trust all exist in that space.
Home rule, in practice, is not simply the privilege of making decisions for ourselves. It is accepting responsibility for those decisions. If Captiva values the ability to govern an issue this important locally, then it should value the standards necessary to preserve the legitimacy of that local control. So, I return to the question: What responsibility comes with knowledge?
Perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether we are voting our conscience or engaging in our own form of quid pro quo.
John Riegert
Fort Myers, FL