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To the editor:
I would like to echo Marilyn Stout's letter to The Breeze in her support of Mayor Gunter. Mayor Gunter has been a mayor who has done many positive things for the city of Cape Coral. Personally, I don't know how he and the council members can sit and take the personal attacks from the same group of people at council meetings.
These same people recently tried to get a petition to recall the mayor. The petition failed. The petition got 3,867 signatures out of 139,371 registered voters.
The petition organizer said the results were "pathetic." But the organizer went further and did the typical let's-blame-everyone-else: "We didn't expect the fear of retaliation from so many people. I can't imagine there aren't 7,000 angry people in this community. It was very disheartening but shows we have a bigger problem."
Fear and retaliation - inflammatory words with no proof.
The first statement of the petitioner's grounds alleged that Gunter had violated Florida Statute 112.311 (6) because he "repeatedly voted against the people."
The mayor and council's votes are a matter of public record. Just because they voted against an issue or issues that these people support does not mean the mayor and council are against the people.
So, if the petition was not successful, then the people of Cape Coral must be stupid.
It is the same vitriolic language we see and hear every day from the party that is out of touch with the American people, and in this case with the people of Cape Coral.
The one issue, the stipend, is the issue the mayor and council got wrong. It wasn't so much the what, but the how the issue was handled. However, if all governments are evaluated by one issue, then no government would survive. A better evaluation is judge for yourself in the link below on the city's 2024 accomplishments.
I met Mayor Gunter and City Manager Ilczyszyn when many of us were concerned about the Chiquita lock crushing and killing manatees. We formed a group - Cape Coral Friends of The Manatee and over 2,000 people signed a petition supporting the removal of the lock. The mayor and city manger were 100% behind removal of the lock, and continued to fight for its removal, which has been accomplished this past week within budget and on time. All of the alleged environmental complaints against the city were debunked in trial by leading environmental experts and the plaintiff's offered zero scientific testimony to support their allegations. The judge admonished the so-called plaintiff experts.
The mayor, city council, and city manager work closely to continue improvements to the city. The list of accomplishments is too long to put here, I encourage you to view the accomplishments at https://www.capecoral.gov/government/city_government/city_manager/index.php
I've lived in Cape Coral for almost 24 years. It is not the same Cape Coral today that it was when we first moved here. Many of us would like to have the Cape Coral of days gone by, but that is not going to happen. The city is growing, people want to live here. To make Cape Coral one of the best places to live takes good government. Mayor Gunter and City Manager Ilczyszn are good government. They can't satisfy everyone, but the list of accomplishments is impressive.
Dennis Costello
Cape Coral