Making Tough Decision in the Future

On August 28, 1997 when the residents of Marco Island voted to incorporate they did so because they believed they might be better able to manage the future of the island and the community they resided in. We’ve done a relatively acceptable job of trying to manage the herculean task that laid before us as the reality of accepting that challenge came more into focus over the last 25 years.

One of those realities lay in the fact that the infrastructure of the island was never in the best of shape and the investment of a great deal of capital would be required to deal with the bridges and roadways in and around the 24.66 square mile island.

I give you this background to help with some of the “institutional knowledge” of how the city came to be, and the struggles we have had in dealing with providing the operational needs of the community relative to infrastructure which has been neglected or poorly managed.

Much of the verbiage in our municipal documents was adopted as a mirror image of the Collier County Code of Ordinances which would require our new city to adopt its own Land Development Regulations within one year of approval of the community’s Comprehensive Plan. As part of those documents and the Land Development Code, comes the requirement to provide a Level of Services documentation and statement to the State of Florida relative to our compliance, so as to ensure we have “concurrency.”

In this case “concurrency” simply means that any development will not impact negatively on a community’s ability to handle it. That any new development will not over tax the ability of city services to handle it.

The recent ongoing debate regarding development within the “Old Marco” area calls into question whether we do meet the requirements relative to adequate infrastructure, specifically in the area of roadways. Those requirements are called out under Marco City Ordinance 02-09 which provides for the need of “concurrency” in regard to the necessary provisions for adequate transportation provisions, in this case the roadways, to safely provide access and egress to the areas in question.

Unfortunately the city would provide what many felt was a flawed traffic study for the area in question, due to its timing, the condition of the infrastructure for pedestrians, lighting conditions and other variables which could impact pedestrian and vehicular safety.

United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s phrase, which he used in 1964 during the court’s deliberations regarding an obscenity case, could probably be best used in the discussions as to whether the traffic conditions in this area were safe or not. “I know it when I see it.”  

The unfortunate issue which surrounds the problem within Old Marco lies in the fact that we have a dangerous situation in that area due to an overload of the infrastructure (roadway) to handle the demand. No one is against a restaurant, but anyone that lives in that area wants to ensure they can access their homes safely and maybe walk safely down to those establishments and enjoy an evening out with a loved one.

The first people who should stand up and make the point of safety above profits should be the two department heads of the public safety agencies whose people will be called upon when those tragedies inevitably occur, for they will. Both are good people and I struggle to understand why on such an important issue that they don’t.

As we progress in time we will be seeing more and more planning and zoning issues come before both the city planning staff and the Planning Advisory Board who have a great deal of responsibility to ensure what you like about the look of this community is maintained.

I guess they’ll soon reflect back on the famous quote from late President Harry Truman: “If you want a friend in this town you should buy a dog.” I say this because having been here over all these years, I’ve had a front row seat to how government shouldn’t work on both the county and city side of the fence.

However, the buck stops at the dais with city councilors who will have to make the tough choices. Go down in the evening and tell me if  you’d want to risk that dangerous walk down Park Avenue with your wife or child. Try to traverse sidewalks which are in such horrific condition on Bald Eagle Drive, we should be ashamed. Those dangerous conditions still exist, and the job isn’t done until you clean it up by making the capital investment in the infrastructure improvements that are necessary.