Council members voted 6-1 Monday, to drop a legal process they had set in motion that is required before one governmental agency sues another. Councilwoman Penny Taylor cast the dissenting vote.

The city and county were trying to settle on a date for a "conflict resolution" meeting between the Collier County Commission and Naples City Council.

But that won't happen now because a majority of the council members said they lacked confidence in the city's chances of winning such a legal battle.

Naples officials had adopted a comprehensive plan amendment that states overpasses shall be built in the city limits only as a last resort. County attorneys were concerned the wording could be used as fodder to challenge this particular project, which would elevate the parkway over Airport-Pulling Road.

A portion of the land where it is to be built is inside the city limits. The council also voted in favor of asking the county to drop its protest with a state agency to this plan amendment.

Considering this wording is still in the city's long-range plan, the City Council, in order to follow its own law, has had no choice but to challenge the county's overpass project, Naples resident Henry Kennedy told the council.

"Vote the way you are required to vote, please," he said.

Councilwoman Tamela Wiseman disagreed, saying the city's comprehensive plan doesn't prohibit overpasses, it only requires the city to explore feasible alternatives to building them.

City Attorney Bob Pritt has said several times that based on his legal research of cases in which cities have fought Lee County over projects such as the Midpoint and Sanibel bridges, he didn't like Naples' chances if the city were to similarly challenge Collier County government over this overpass.

Some city officials have opposed an overpass at the intersection, saying it will hurt the small-town atmosphere of Naples and also cause traffic jams by moving westbound parkway traffic faster to the busy Naples intersection of Goodlette-Frank Road at the parkway.

Even though the council's vote Monday was 6-1, the real sentiment of the council could be found in the 4-3 vote just prior to that vote. Taylor and Councilmen John Sorey and Bill MacIlvaine were on the losing end of a motion to proceed with the "conflict resolution" process.

Sorey and MacIlvaine changed their position when they realized they couldn't win majority support for that initial motion. Sorey said he was changing his vote to show a sign of unanimity on the council and support for Mayor Bill Barnett, who was the swing vote in the 4-3 failure of the original motion.

"This is not about an overpass," Barnett said. "Do I want an overpass? Personally, no. . . If I felt we had any chance at all to win it (a battle in court), I would fight it."

Construction already has started on the overpass, which could cost $35 million.

For several hours Monday morning before taking a vote, the council listened to a consultant the city hired to determine whether there was an alternative to building an overpass.

Consultant Joel Leisch, an adjunct professor in the Civil Engineering Department at Boise State University, stated that an overpass will eventually be required at the Golden Gate Parkway-Airport-Pulling intersection based on 2025 traffic forecasts.

Leisch, who has a transportation consulting business that has recommended intersection designs for major cities such as Orlando, also acknowledged that traffic forecasts aren't an exact science.

"They (the forecasts) are very precise, but not necessarily accurate," he said.

Council members who favored proceeding with legal action harped on this point, noting that the traffic projections may not pan out and the overpass may not have to be built.

"I think we've very clearly been shown today there is a viable at-grade (on-the-ground) alternative until we continue to look at these (traffic projection) numbers," Sorey said.

Taylor compared the uncertainty over traffic forecasting used to justify the overpass to predicting the path of a hurricane such as Charley, which wobbled and didn't land where forecasters initially had predicted.

"It is clear that it (traffic forecasting) is often not a straight line. It is often up and down," she said.

Russell said that's a poor analogy.

"The comparison of a hurricane prediction to transportation and population prediction is comical. To compare the random forces of nature to the highly predictable forces of development is just nonsensical," he said.

Russell also said now that the city's own consultant has concluded that an overpass would have to be built at the intersection, he sees no sense in taking legal action against the county.

"I don't know what it is we are supposed to be directing our staff to sell in conflict resolution," Russell said.

Leisch recommended to the council that on-the-ground improvements be tried first before an overpass is built, with traffic being monitored to see if projections pan out. Under such a design, the lanes through the intersection would be reconfigured.

Leisch's recommendation calls for a downsized overpass compared with what the county is planning, with fewer lanes, a shorter span and reduced height. Leisch told the council that this overpass design could cost $4 million to $10 million less than the county's design.

Leisch's report states that his proposed intersection design could delay construction of the overpass until as late as 2010.

However, county Transportation Administrator Norman Feder said it doesn't make sense to go with an intersection design that would only last a few years.

"It is going to take me over two years to build it (the other design). Then I've got three years of useful life," Feder said.

After that, an overpass would have to be built anyway, Feder said.

"So then I've got five years of constant construction at a cost, less safety, and problems for the motorists and people who live along side it (the overpass site)," he noted.

Feder said county staff would seriously consider some of the comments Leisch made about modifying the current overpass design.

Several residents spoke Monday for and against the overpass.

Jack Pointer said waiting to build the overpass is only going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars more later. He said 20 years ago when he moved to this area, there was a line on the map outlining a future Livingston Road that could have been built for far less than what it will cost today.

But Bear's Paw resident Jim MacArthur said the traffic forecasts that went into justifying the project might be flawed.

"We know we have 80-something thousand PUDs (planned unit developments) approved which will not be built,' he said.

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