marconews.com Accounts

It's about time! It has taken getting new independent council members and a utility that has been run into probable bankruptcy to get the attention it needed to straighten it out. People are so fed up, I've even heard from condo owners who also own a house and have said they thought they were getting too good a deal on the condo rates.

There was no need to put this CRA? on the books now. I love how C. Gibson says this isn't going to cost us anything, but when A. Petricca went in front of them and told them the costs to the rest of us when we have to make up the difference that won't be coming in to the city from this CRA?, he looked shocked. He's still puzzleing over that. There are lots of problems with CRA'?s? when times are still uncertain...Marco Eagle 2/7/10 said about the foreclosure in Treviso Bay, : "The sad news for everyone involved is that under current market conditions, the entire project is not worth the outstanding community developement debt" Right now, no one who is fiscally responsible can assume that there will be a positive outcome for this.

It wasn't that Harrison was afraid to ask for help. He was asked if he needed help and he said no. Ask yourself why. The other question Mr Stephanides, Sciarinno, and others, is why you weren't concerned about our city's books being in good order after Dana Souza brought out the problems he saw. If people hadn't practically demanded an audit, which was money well spent, we still would be in the dark. Do you not want your city to be the best it can be?

I think it would take maybe 50 to 60 septic tanks to fail all at the same time to equal the mess the city created today.

I've always felt that Dana Souza has done a great job for the city, and I don't want to see him leave. I think he has exhibited good knowledge of what the city manager's duties are when he was serving as interim, showed strong leadership skills, and made people accountable for their actions. By all appearances, he communicated with the council well and performed that job as well as or better than anyone else with a degree. What more could you ask for?

This school board needs seven people on it. It is too large a district to have only 5 members making decisions for this large of an area. Also, they should not be paid for their service. Where I come from,people do this to give back to the community, not for the pay.

If you're one of the people being affected with
health problems and you live in the areas where this
de-watering is going on I'm sorry for what you're going through. I've seen report after report that
says there are many negative health effects from it
but our city says it's ok to continue because there
is no positive proof that it is the cause. So what,
we now know about the health effects from breathing second hand smoke, but we've never had any measurable proof of that either. Older people don't
have the physical immunity to hazards like younger
people do. Why is that so hard to understand?

As I've said before, our City is complicit in these violations of worker protections by continuing to use companies like this to perform work in our City.
We should value people's health, no matter whether they are full-time, part-time city personnel, or workers that are contract employees who don't have a clue about the equipment they are supposed to be provided. It says a lot about what kind of people we are when health concerns are put on the back burner so the work can get done. As a citizen, I'm certainly unhappy that my representative government was not proactive from the beginning. These accidents should never happen.

What kind of a bureaucracy has been created here that
it takes fifteen million dollars a year just to operate this small city? Salaries, public works money, and maintenance costs need to be seriously looked at.

I don't need an "expert" to come in and do testing.
I know my husband has coughed so much he was at the doctors office Monday and my throat has been irritated so much I'm drinking water constantly. I don't know for sure why, I can only guess the cause.
We don't have any red tide problem, that I'm aware of,there's no smoke in the air from fires, so what else has been going on for weeks?

There is no justification for the STRP. Only the desire of the majority of the City Council to have it. Projects of this magnitude should be based on whether or not it is needed, or desired by the whole
community,of which this is neither. The people will speak at the next election and the new council will have to right the wrongs that this council has done.
So we can only hope they will realize what their legacy will be and stop making things worse for the island.

As I understand the intent of the Sunshine Law, it is to give the public confidence in the conducting
of government business. I find it hard to have any faith in our city government when information is exchanged between selected council members and the staff, and bid notices are published in advance of any decisions made by the council as a whole. Our city is in great need of a make-over.

Do you think they got the message? We don't want the spending cap subject to change, we won't give you our stamp of approval for sewering the island, and overall, pretty much unhappy with how you're governing the island.

Mr Issler, your city council had opportunities all along to make proper decisions, but chose not to. We asked for testing to be done to show pollution. They refused to do that. When the asbestos contamination was brought up by Roger Hall at the council meeting, they chose to ignore him, deny that it occurred, then charged that citizens had planted it there. Think about the opportunities they had to act in the best interests of all of us and chose not to. And you wonder why lawsuits get filed?

Wow, its been two days since Roger Hall announced his candidacy and he is being viciously attacked as though he had committed some terrible crime. He has stated his position and what his plans are. He has never been ambivalent, coy, or has any hidden agenda.
What are you people afraid of?

I admire him for confronting the wrong being done to our community. Thank you Roger and Joe Batte too, for being willing to put yourself out there. Many Marco Islanders appreciate it!

The asbestos fiasco on Marco is like a hot potato that gets passed around but no one wants to deal with it. Clearly the law was violated, but Quality gets rewarded with more work. Apparently Bill Moss and Rony Joel didn't know what their contractor was doing. Nobody cares about the workers exposed to it.
The only ones paying are the taxpayers. Will citizens ever get an apology from Councilman Tucker?
Will the FBI, EPA,FDLE, or Sheriff's office ever give the citizens an answer?

Let's see now, 7 people from the city, 3 from Quality
enterprises, 2 from the EPA, 2 from AMR (cleaning people) and 1 from the DEP. How do we think this is going to turn out? With no one there from Cares, or
Roger Hall, Butch Neyland, or any other citizens representative? How one sided can it get?

Citizens have been asking to vote from the beginning and they wouldn't let us. Under Bill Moss's leadership there hasn't been much democracy here. They should listen to the voice of the people. Thanks, Friends of Marco, for taking the initiative.

I'm still wondering why this council continually accepts Mr Moss's refusal to force Quality Enterprises to clean up the mess. For him to say that city people are partly responsible because they asked QE to put those pipes on the mulch piles on site C, is an admission of guilt then that the city knew there was asbestos in those pipes. If the city didn't know, then we had no part in it being there in the first place. It was the contractors duty to recognize what they were working with and take appropriate measures from the beginning, which they did not do. But what the heck, it's only the taxpayers money. Does anybody care?

Unfortunately, contrary views are considered frivolous, unwanted, and unneeded. Hence the lawsuits, followed up by Mr Moss's spending even more to recover costs related to them. Looks to me like an obvious attempt to stifle the citizens into acceptance. All the while publicly stating "We encourage our citizens to participate in the governing of Marco Island." If not for Mr.Kiester getting it on the agenda, we wouldn't have known how much money was spent. Thank God it's over now.

With our well being,lifestyles, and property values at risk,everyone ought to be concerned about the environment here. We can't stop the pollution of the caloosahatchee river, or naples bay, some of which ends up down here, but we should be able to require our city government to do the right thing. Why aren't our hotels and tourism people speaking up about this. Their livelihood is at risk. Karen Glaub

No. 1, this still doesn't answer the question of whether the septic tanks are polluting, hence it is an unneeded program. No. 2, you cannot pull out the septic tanks because of unproven pollution, and then put in these deep injection wells to handle wastewater when they are now suspected of polluting the aquifiers. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose stated?

Rep Mack has a plan to spend millions to study red tide, etc. for several years, for "research'. There
was a time I would have thought it's a good idea, however, we need action now. Not more research. Most scientists think it's from too many nutrients
running off into the waters, so two years more of doing nothing to stop that won't help.

p.s.
We'd both like to say to Chairperson CiSciullo that our last tax bill indicates that we own some of this island, so we feel it is improper for you to keep referring to Marco as "my island". This is OUR island. Robert and Karen Glaub

FYI, everyone here, snowbirds, latecomers, long-time owners have a stake in the future of this island. Quit putting people down by categorizing them. It behooves noone to ignore the maneuvering, behind the scenes, in order to get around having to allow the taxpayers to have a say in the outcome of these issues. Obviously these council members, with Moss's input had made their decisions before the meetings, and merely listened to but ignored what the public had to say. This is why we have a "sunshine law". Karen Glaub