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Residents of Cape Coral are getting a little tired of waiting for their debris to get picked up, their internet restored and of their community looking like a hurricane hit it, like it did.
Wednesday, during the regular meeting of the city council, City Manager Rob Hernandez stressed following citizens input that it's going to be quite a while before life returns to normal.
Many drop-off sites in the city are north of Pine Island Road because south of it has nearly reached buildout, and what few larger tracts of land there is are privately owned.
The areas that are selected as drop off points are a major inconvenience, Hernandez said, but they are not chosen arbitrarily or to punch a particular neighborhood.
"We can't avoid this any more than we could have avoided the hurricane. This is a major disaster that has hit our region and it will be quite some time before life returns to some semblance of normalcy," Hernandez said. "We are all going through this inconvenience at work, in our neighborhoods and as we commute."
Councilmember Dan Sheppard said that nobody planned to have what happened to them happen or for a dump to be place in District 2, but it's what needs to be done now.
"We are all going to suffer to some extent. Adjusters have told me how amazed they are that the cleanup has happened so quickly in our city," Sheppard said. "We don't plan to destroy people's lives. We all have to go through the same thing."
During the hurricane recovery update, Terry Schweitzer, solid waste manager, said much of the rights of way work has been completed and the city has hit the 1 million cubic yard mark on debris pickup, averaging more than 42,000 cubic yards per day over the last week. The first pass on vegetation has been completed, while construction and destruction debris pickup is ongoing.
Gloria Tate, who was taing part her last full meeting as council member, warned residents that normal residential horticulture waste cannot be stored in a black trash bag, but either in a can or craft paper bag.
Waste Pro will begin to pick up horticulture on Nov. 14.
In other business:
• In an update on EnerGov, the city's permitting program, Matt Grambow said 3,598 emergency permits have been issued, with 94 percent issued at city hall. Another 1,924 permits were issued through the old EnerGov system. All since Oct. 11.
All new CSS new permits will be open on Nov. 14.
The city has also worked to improve permitting through a push-button system and simple permitting. The restricting is a result of wanting to reduce the task volume in the system to improve performance.
• The city council also discussed at length an addendum to the consent agenda regarding the release of a lien on property at 2915 S.W. Pine Island Road.
The city issued a Code Compliance Lien for fines of $1,000 per day from Dec. 15, 2021 on the property.
The prospective buyers, Continental 645 Fund LLC, are under contract for the purchase of the property and have requested the city release the lien on the property upon acquisition.
The buyers propose to build a multi-family development on the property. The development is expected to start in November.
Hernandez recommended the release of the lien, which was approved 7-0.