Town Council - Regular Meeting

Yes. Thank you, mayor. There were a lot of great things going on on this Island this weekend. Um, but today I'd like to briefly thank the town staff for all the work they've done in the last month or so, uh, getting us prepared for not just this council meeting, but, uh, the budget it's a, it's a heavy load this time every year. And I want to thank them for that work.

Yes, I'd like to thank Mr. Rizzo and the Lee County Sheriffs for the weekend. It went real smooth. Thank you very much. Labor Day is always a challenge, and you guys sailed right through it, so thank you.

Councilor King. Well, for the Deputy Town Manager, I'll offer these words of wisdom from Frosty the Snowman and say, happy birthday.

I think they'll need to use golf carts. Good idea. No questions, Jim. Thank you.

Yes, so I met with Patrick and the team, the attorney, and the applicant's representative. I also received many, many emails, and I will say that I have none requesting denial and quite a few requesting approval. Okay. Mr. Safford?

Since the last meeting, I have not met with anyone, but I've received the same emails that Council Member Link received.

concert king the only difference is since the last hearing i received one email in support

I don't, thank you, but it is nice to see you incorporated all those great ideas and it shows the process working. Yes. Thanks, Maggie.

So in Phase 1, the required parking per code

I thought 212 stuck in my head, but I... It was probably less because there was a... You weren't counting those tennis courts that you sometimes used, is that correct?

Okay, so the number you gave was phase one, the 160- What I gave today or what? No, what you just quoted, Dan, was phase one. Did you also ask him what parking will be in phase two? Yeah, so I can reiterate that. Okay, please.

Patrick, you also said that there were five golf carts and bicycles in phase one. Would they roll over into phase two as well? Yes. Okay, thank you.

Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Ordinance 2610, CPD 20250286, 1207 Estero Boulevard, One Particular Harbor, AKA Silver Sands Resort. This is an ordinance of the town of Fort Myers Beach, Florida, approving with conditions denying a rezoning of property located at 1207 Estero Boulevard, Fort Myers Beach. Generally identified as strap number 19-46-24-W4-0150D.0050 from downtown zoning district to a commercial plan development with 12 deviations to allow for a 60-unit hotel and a 2,500 square. It says 11 on here. It says 12.

with 12 deviations to allow for a 60-unit hotel and 2,500 square feet of commercial retail space and 51 parking spaces, providing for other clarifications as necessary, providing for conflicts of law, scrivener's errors, severability, and providing for an effective date. We've got Jason Green. has been qualified as an expert already by this town council based on his education experience and has accepted as it has been accepted as an expert in the field of land use planning and development in town of Fort Myers beach. Are there any other individuals who would like to be qualified as expert witn

I have viewed the site, and I had three ex parte. They were emails hoping for denial.

Okay. Councilman King? Same. And I'm the same as well.

Have you seen a copy of the agenda backup materials from staff?

Councilman? Nothing currently. Nor do I. Thank you. Can we have the applicant, please? Megan?

Patrick, can I stop you there for a moment? Yes. Can you tell me, maybe Jason can, what was the required parking? AND WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

I do have questions. So is this applicant required to provide public benefit, or do they fit nice and neatly into the requirements? We are providing the ones that you provided.

I do have another question, but I'd rather everyone else have a chance to speak, and then I can sum it up.

Yeah, I'm trying to find it. Again, I think I mentioned it this last time. How do you address the concerns of the residents about the height?

Also one of the emails we received there was a concern about the five foot easement and whether there actually can be found the property lines where they exist.

Anything else? Okay, I have a couple questions for you, Pat. With regard to the retail space, what is planned there?

SO THERE'S NO RESTAURANT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC IN THIS BUILDING? word that there was, I just want to re, have you reiterate that there is, there's not.

Okay. Let's see, my, my third question was, we had, I had spoken to you about this last time, want to make sure, reiterate that that parking on Primo is, is used. That's very, those are the very last four spots you're going to use.

Okay. Mr. Torgerson, do you want to say a word?

I have one follow-up question on those five or six parking spots on Primo. Besides not using them in high season, can you use those spots for deliveries when you have laundry dropped off, when you have other things coming back and forth? I think one of the complaints from the residents on Primo is the deliveries, how it's always that... Everything's always jammed up there.

OKAY. THANK YOU FOR THAT. IT'S EVEN BETTER THAN WHAT I ENVISIONED.

I do have a few questions, Tom. So would that delivery structure that you're talking about, could that live in perpetuity? Well, this is one business.

Gotcha. That takes care of that question. There are also some utility poles, I think, on Primo there. Are those for you to move, or the utility company, or who picks up that tab? Or can they be underground, replaced underground?

Perfect. And Tom, I have one other comment. One of my biggest concerns, and I think we hear it around town as well, is we are reducing parking for a lot of people. At some point, especially in that area, could we have people that are all driving around looking for the same few parking spots? might you have parking spots at other holdings that you may have on the island up on the north end that you would, as a public benefit, consider for the six spaces that you're going to require, six less spaces that you would deed to the town perhaps for some income?

So I think maybe I didn't explain it perfectly or very well. So I appreciate that and you seem to do it very well now. My question is in light of public benefit, do you have any parking availability that you could give the town, for the town to have revenue that would equate to the six spots. Similar to the waste in a way. Waste in a way. Not that big, but I don't know what other holdings you may have.

I COULDN'T AGREE WITH YOU MORE, PATRICK. THANK YOU.

All right. Public comments. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on this matter? If so, please come forward to the podium and identify yourself, provide your address, and whether you were sworn in. Tracy, were you sworn in?

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Yes, sir.

Could you step to the microphone so we can hear you, please?

Great. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Seeing none, we're going to close public comment. Would the applicant like a time for rebuttal?

I think that's important. I think that's very important, especially public safety. I mean, there are a lot of places we would not put a park bench, even though it would be lovely. It would be too dangerous.

I think this helps the safety issue as well.

So would we have to change anything in the...

Okay, and if you were to do what Councilmember Link asked and change the width of the road,

But should we look to adjust that? It's something that you'll work with the town. We can't say right now specifically how it would be. Is that correct? You can't specifically say. We can come up with some wording for that. OK. We don't need to nail it down exactly two feet, three feet, five. It's just working with the town to come up with.

Okay. Any other, any other questions? Okay. Well then I'm, I will now close the public hearing and request discussion or a motion from town council to either approve, approve conditions, deny with reasons or continuance to a time certain. We have a discussion or a motion. Council Member King? Working here, buddy. Okay.

Vice Mayor, I will approve with conditions. I may need some help here. Ordinance 2610, CPD 2025-0286. at 1207 Estero Boulevard. And I'm not sure if this is a time when Jason can add

OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

OK. Thank you, Nancy. Good with that, Nancy?

Okay, so we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second. Okay. How do you vote? Ms. Lund? John? Aye. And I'm an aye as well. Motion carries 3-0 with Mayor Allers abstaining and Councilmember McLean on excused absence. Congratulations. I'd like to take a short break if possible. Can we return 10 minutes, 315? Okay, thank you.

I do not. Okay. I'm just looking forward to hearing from the better Allers.

Councilor Link, any questions? I don't, but I'm looking forward to it.

Well, should we do a five-year agreement or just do a year agreement and then revisit it?

Well, especially when it says subsequent annual fees will vary year to year.

Thank you. You're welcome. Since the contract is set for October 1st, can we push this to potentially our next meeting, which is the 25th? Will that give us enough time?

OKAY. SO DOES THAT CHANGE THE COST OF THE DESIGN?

I would think that the contractor or FPL would have insurance to cover this. And you're right, Mayor, we haven't accepted a job completed, so it shouldn't be on us.

It is on us when we're taking $150,000 from future maintenance, and the maintenance is just going to go up down the road because the costs are going to increase in, what is it, a 10-year agreement? Down that road, it's going to cost a heck of a lot more for maintenance.

I don't see it. a completion date, a hard completion date, what they're going to attack next. Is this on your weekly calls? I want to give somebody $150,000 that it shouldn't be given. I want to know when this project is going to be done. It's like building my house. When are you going to finish this project? And what lights are you going to light up first?

I have a question that maybe you all know, and it's me coming late to the party here. But how were we told that so much wire, 54,000 linear feet, was stolen? When was that flag raised? I mean, was there a gigantic reel of cable out there that wasn't there one day? Was it in a warehouse that wasn't one day? Was it installed in the wrong place or then they went to use it and it wasn't there? How do we even know fundamentally something was stolen?

And how would we know it wouldn't happen again?

Mayor, I also think if you don't have a map of what areas you're talking about, we don't know that we aren't replacing something that may be stolen again, and we don't know is that the first claim or the second claim. It could just get muddier. I understand the need to move forward, but if we don't know exactly what areas we're talking about, it almost makes it more difficult should it be stolen again. If we don't have it secured in some way. I mean, are we the only island? Are they seeing, do you know, Nancy, if FPNL is talking, or from any of our... No, I apologize.

If you don't know. That's exactly it. And I also saw something when I was reading. It looked like the original was 130 feet, but now it's 390 feet. There's just a lot of missing pieces. I'm not sure.

Scott, it looks like you were ready to say something. So that flock camera didn't catch him?

I would, Nancy. We could bring it back to you. I appreciate what you're doing here. But again, I use the analogy of building a house. My contractor says, hey, I need some more money. And he shakes me down. I'm like, well, when are you going to? What have you done? What do you need to do to finish? And when are you going to be finished? And there's nothing in here that tells me one of those three things. What they've done, what they're going to do, and when they're going to do it.

From neighbors. My street, street over, other street.

I may add one other thing, too. And, Will, you may know this already, but in our grant world, maintenance and product are two different things. And so we would want to make sure if we move maintenance money into product money that we don't end up having to pay, you know, it may be funds that change eligibility requirements. I'm not sure. I just think we need a little more information. Maybe have them in here.

Councillor King, questions for Mark? Can you give me the Reader's Digest version of what's this all about?

And I bet you can tell me when he's going to finish the job. I bet you can tell me when you're going to finish the job once you buy those clips, right?

So if he wants a bigger meter, shouldn't that be on him to pay for that then? Oh, yeah, definitely.

You're shaking me down again, John. Thank you, Mark.

Your usual good job. I appreciate it. I don't know about that. Mark, why is your shirt so clean? What's that? Why is your shirt so clean?

I do have a question. It seemed to see in the packet that these have already been purchased. Is that correct? I'm sorry, Rebecca? Is this a retroactive purchase?

I just want to make sure, because you can't get an invoice until something is shipped, correct?

I must have misread in the. No, I think that's where the.

Correct. So I have a question. Is my understanding that two of the cameras don't work? Do we – we're still paying for two cameras that didn't work?

I've got a couple things. Yes, sir. Thank you for your explanation because that clears up a lot for me as well. In your discussions with Lake County Sheriff's Office, did any of the subject of these cameras helping with any incidents on the island? Do we have any data on that?

I just wondered if there was any hard data on this. Because this is an emotional issue. And most of it is played out on social media. And everybody on social media is an expert on everything, but they don't know anything. They're usually wrong about their rights, and the Supreme Court has noted that a person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfare has no reasonable expectations of privacy in their movements from one place to another. So that really bothers me. I just didn't want us caving, looking like we're caving to that kind of social media pressure. You make some valid points. I

And that may have a 60-day window as well that may void the need to pay $3,000?

Well, in lieu of ongoing budget issues, I'm willing to forego this to save the taxpayers some money. Any other discussion, Scott?

No, I support Will as well. I think we need to get controls over the data and who has access. So I agree with you, Will.

So will that just be a private meeting or will that be on the record?

Two quick things. I'll be attending the Governor's Conference representing Fort Myers. The Governor's Conference on Tourism Thursday and Friday. I'll be representing our beach and the TDC. So I'm looking forward to it. And then for you, Rebecca, and for Councilman McLean, the Florida League of Cities is having their the first elected municipal officials program next week, if you can.

Yes. I've attended that. It's wonderful. MR. Oh, okay. MS. Yes. Absolutely wonderful. I'm scheduled to attend session number two, which is in October.

MR. Oh, great. Okay. I don't know if Councilmember McLean has attended, but I highly recommend it. It's really good. That's all I have.

Just try to be quick on an issue that's affected our town residents. I'm glad probably because of the public pressure they received that the Fort Myers Beach Mosquito Control District Board finally approved an agreement with Lee County about spraying. That just runs through the end of the month. Hopefully they'll continue because talking with Lee County that because we're in an El Nino year, they expect the season for mosquitoes to continue. So hopefully they will continue to work on that. I was disappointed that their treasurer took a cheap shot at the town. Not surprised, but disappointed. A

Well, Mayor, if you'll indulge me for a minute, I'll give you some town trivia, maybe even an obscure fact. With the Pankow family, Wayne and Marion were residents at Island's End for many years. Two of their sons enjoyed some notoriety and some fame. John Pankow is probably best known as Cousin Ira on Mad About You. His brother James is a founding member of the band Chicago. And I told you that to tell you this. Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care about time? If so, I can't imagine why. Well, I do, because it's time to adjourn. Move to adjourn.