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Letter to the Editor: We the people
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Does “municipalization” equal democracy? Kudos to our City Council Chair William Trotter and City Manager Stephen Thompson for their leadership in creating Marco Island’s Electric Municipalization Ad Hoc Committee.
Indeed, the committee’s 26 volunteer members deserve the plaudits of all citizens concerned with government “sunshine” and broad-based citizen participation. Will this fresh-to-Marco Island leadership mark a new beginning for concerned citizens longing for government transparency, robust public discourse and debate, and valid, timely data that were so grossly ignored and patently scorned by our elected officials and their hired bureaucrats and consultants during much of our decade-old independence?
Perhaps, now, our local government will begin to lead “We, the People” rather than continue to bridle and rule “We, the People.” Increasingly we face complex municipal issues demanding sound, proactive and citizen-energized political leadership. Included are complex issues ranging from revenue shortfalls to falling property assessments, rising public-service costs and fees, soaring labor expenses, increased lobbying by special interests for expanding commercial land use codes and population densities, island vehicular access and egress convenience, traffic calming, city-landlord-tenant-timeshare-fractional owner relationships, and growing pressure from citizens of all ages, incomes and political stripes to preserve, protect and enhance Marco Island’s exceptional barrier island legacy.
Obviously included on this civic priority list is our singular Gulf Paradise ecosystem which seems so grossly threatened by typically tawdry, Florida-inspired profit and gain motives.
Thus, substantial and representative citizen input in public decision-making along with genuine civic initiatives and mandatory referendums – without confrontational politics, name-calling, dissident derision and ridicule in place of meaningful discourse, debate, data-collection and broad-based polling – remain the real “Energy Municipalization” that Marco Islanders direly seek today. To most Americans, all energy and power – be it electric, solar, wind, nuclear, organic, oil, coal, etc. – will never be equal to or become a priority over citizen energy and power in a place called democracy. To me, that’s what “Municipalization” really means.
Sayre Uhler, Marco Island
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