City Manager McNees Delivers Upbeat Update to Marco Realtors

The Salty Dog restaurant in the Marco Walk Plaza was filled to capacity Wednesday afternoon as City Manager Mike McNees entertained Board of Realtors members with a thorough update on hot button topics at City Hall. McNees was able to connect with his audience by finding humor in the everyday challenges of life on the island.

“If you think back a year ago,” McNees starts, "we were almost still full time dealing with the tactical effects of COVID. What do we do with the beaches? What do we open? When do we open? What should the restrictions be? Should we wear masks? Should we not wear masks? And for a while that’s all we did. Almost full time, dealing with the decisions that had to be made. So, it actually feels good to be out here and not dealing with that for the moment—not that it’s over.”

He earned his first laughs when he labeled the difficult Yellowbird Street construction project as “the smoothest, least-disruptive project you’ve ever seen.”

"I know the condition of our roads is really one of the number one issues people have,” McNees empathized. "The holes and the rollercoaster parts. We’ve got a big commitment to that in our budget. We’re taking a lot of the local option sales tax money and putting it toward road repaving.”

Parents will be happy to know that the roads around Tommie Barfield Elementary are about to receive attention. 

"The next phase of road pavement for us will cover pretty much all of the area around Tommie Barfield Elementary,” McNees said. "You’ll see before school starts that most of that area around TBE will be repaved, and that will be helpful.”

McNees then moved on to the city’s two biggest projects.

"We have now the two biggest capital projects the City of Marco has ever done,” he said. "We’ve allocated $12 million for Veterans' Park. And that is going to be an incredible amenity for the city. If you’re not aware of that project, tune in to that. It’s going to be a fantastic addition to the city. If you’ve ever been to Baker Park in Naples, it won’t look like that, but it will be a lot like Baker Park. It will kind of give us a center that we haven’t had before.”

Venerable realtor Alan Sandlin questioned McNees about a key component that appears to be missing in the Veterans' Park plan.

"But my question for you,” Sandlin started, "is that in those early plans there was going to be a public walkway from Esplanade, under the bridge, behind Winn Dixie to Veterans' Park, where there would be lay along the boat docks. I haven’t seen that in the plan. You know, when they rebuilt that bridge on Collier, that bridge is higher than it was for two reasons. One to allow taller boats to get back in that area. The other was to allow people to walk under the bridge. My wife and I go under that bridge a lot. At nighttime - or whatever time - that is such a cool walk. At nighttime especially, it’s all lit up. You can see the fish. If you haven’t walked under that bridge at nighttime, you’re missing one of the neatest views on Marco Island. So, do yourself a favor, walk under there, ride your bike under there. That path was to continue on to Veterans' Park." 

McNees was ready.

“I have a tactical answer and a strategic answer,” McNees said. "The tactical answer is the reason that part of the improvement is not in the plan yet is because there’s not enough money for it. It’s a fairly expensive proposition. And all of the money we’re spending on the park itself, there is a clear desire on the part of City Council to add that boardwalk. In fact, there’s going to be some boardwalk as part of the park. We have created a parks foundation to improve the amenities in the park. That’s one of the things that’s on their radar, to help raise the money to pay for that. So that hasn’t been forgotten at all. Now the boat docks are a different question. There is a lot of interest in seeing that docks are built there. There is a question whether the canal’s wide enough. Whether it’s really the right thing. That’s another thing the foundation is going to look at raising money for. I’d say the boardwalk is pretty much a certainty once the money is raised. The docks are still in the air. That will remain to be seen. I would think if they’re practically functional, it will probably happen. So that question needs to be answered.”

McNees took advantage of the chance to build up a couple of the features of the improved park.

"The main two features will be the bandshell, and what will come with the bandshell isn’t just a better venue for the existing facilities, a lot of new events will come with that. And vastly improved grounds for the farmers’ market. And all the paving and landscaping of the whole place is going to be really nice."

The other major expenditure is the new fire station.

"We’ve put $11.5 million into a fire station,” McNees said. "We have to tear down the main fire station. Even though it’s not very old it had some water intrusion problems and some mold issues that couldn’t be restored. Along with that - and this will really be invisible to you - but we’re going to get a real, functioning hurricane emergency operations center to stage from when we have an emergency.”

Many on the island will be happy to know that the Winterberry Bridge at the intersection of Winterberry Drive and Heathwood Drive is being replaced.

"Coming up soon you may want to be aware that we’re going to be replacing the Winterberry Bridge,” McNees said. "That will be a pain in the rear for probably the better part of the year. We’ll have to do a lot of detouring around that. That will be a big deal. For one, it will improve that bridge, but there’s that little death sidewalk there where you have to walk your bike. That will be a big improvement for that end of the island.”

McNees also touched on construction starts and the permitting process at City Hall.

"There are currently 220 single family homes under construction,” he said. "We don’t see any sign of that slowing down at all. There have been some questions about processes. All of the processes concerning permitting for your new construction or remodel are the same as they were pre-pandemic. There are no City Hall restrictions. We do kind of ask people, if you haven’t been vaccinated, for the sake of our employees, if you would wear a mask at City Hall, we’d appreciate it. We can’t make you. And if we have employees who haven’t been vaccinated, we’re asking them to wear a mask. We think it’s the only courteous thing to do. The processes are the same. You need a permit, you come in the front door, and you put your name in the system on the screen that’s there. Someone will come out to help you. Just the way it worked before. In the last two years I think we’ve made some improvement in our turn-around. We’ve put some effort into that. I don’t hear a lot of complaining about permit turn-around time. If I’m missing it, let me know. The permitting issue was one of the hot button issues when I first started here. I think we’ve gotten better. Some people were kind of hanging onto Irma as an excuse. When I first arrived, there was still a sign on the door that said the building department would be closed on Friday because of Irma. That had been like two years before. That sign found its way into my hands and back onto the desk of those folks. I said, ’No, Irma’s over, we’ve got to get back to it. I think we had just kind of built some inertia there. But they’re doing a really good job. They’re really responsive now. I think that you’ll find that.”

McNees also tried to add some clarity to the vacation rental issue that draws the ire of many islanders.

"The other big topic,” McNees said, "almost as big as COVID for us, is the vacation rental issue. There are folks who really object that vacation rentals are even allowed in a residential neighborhood. There are many, many people who own them and operate them responsibly. Who intend to eventually retire into that house or use it as income property. Our job at the city is to try to help everybody coexist.”

In regard to the vacation rental issue, McNees singled out the work done by his assistant, Casey Lucius.

“Casey did an incredible job for us over the past year putting together a task force to really study where we have interface problems between neighbors and vacation rentals,” McNees said. "How can we identify them, what can we do about them, and how can we help make them work better. We, in the middle of the pandemic, had a Zoom workshop that had more than 400 people participate. Some of you might have been on that call. We heard from a lot of people. The best part is that we didn’t just hear from complainers, we heard from owners, we heard from agents who manage rentals. We got a lot of perspective. The city’s message would be, if you work with people who are buying or own vacation rentals, encourage them to understand what it means to manage those places responsibly. There are a lot of good resources on the city’s website. If you go to the city’s homepage there’s a button there about vacation rentals. Frequently asked questions. Resources from the state. Local resources. All kinds of resources for how you can help be a responsible owner of a vacation rental. Because to some degree those things are the goose that lays the golden eggs. To the extent that the folks who own and operate them responsibly, the goose keeps laying those eggs. Now I personally don’t like that the legislature stops the city from having any regulation, because I think just in general, we don’t need the legislature telling the city what they should and shouldn’t do. That’s why you have a city. That’s not likely to change. So, we’re not going to be able to regulate in any way. But what we are going to be able to do is encourage people to be responsible. We’ve done a lot of work with our noise ordinance. We’re about to suggest a couple tweaks to that so it works a little more effectively. We try to do those kinds of things to make the interface a little smoother. And I think we’ve made some progress. This summer’s been quieter so far than last summer.”

McNees also touched on the contentious seawall construction issue.

"We did make some changes to how seawalls can be constructed,” he said. "I think the seawall folks, many of them are fine with it. Others, not so much. But I guarantee the neighbors who had to live next door to the staging lots like it better. They’re much happier." 

McNees’ final update was on a water quality study the city has commissioned. It is due in September.

"A really, really big deal,” McNees said, "we’ve been in the process of having an expert doing some really extensive water quality testing. And that’s something that got delayed somewhat during COVID because of labor shortages. But we’re going to get a report back on that in September. The point of the testing is that City Council hasn’t wanted to spend a lot more money on water quality until they really understand what the causes are and where we will get the most bang for our buck. I really want to applaud you all for organizing the cleanup of the waterways. Because that will be really helpful. We really want to be able to attack the real sources. What I fear most is that we come back and find it’s all coming from the Gulf of Mexico. And there might not be much that we can do to help. But we don’t know yet. When we get those results, it will be a big deal. I’m sure we’ll have a big workshop on that in September.”

During the question-and-answer session, longtime realtor Bill Filbin challenged McNees about the fountain at Veterans Park. The realtor contends that the fountain has not worked for months.

"The Freedom Fountain,” Filbin said, "I believe, cost a half a million dollars. We gave the maintenance of that fountain to the city. That fountain has not been operating for over eight months. To me, to have a fountain and not have it on is not fair to anybody. I drive by it every day.”

McNees was firm but civil in addressing Filbin’s claim. 

“I hate to say it,” McNees said, “but I don’t think that’s true. We’ve changed who takes care of that fountain. We've taken it from our parks department and given it to our utilities department. I’ll look back into it. I’ll check that out."