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To the editor:
The snowball effect of removing Citizens of Cape Coral to give input to Council is now rolling. Citizen's input has effectively been frozen. The snowball effect started like this:
The mayor takes the audio visual projector away from Citizens Input time. The city attorney is the "fall guy" saying, "You don't need it."
Next, the mayor and council attack the citizens to be thrown out of council meetings with a new bunch of restrictive rules.
The assault continues: The mayor and council remove 8A, Petitions to Council, from the agenda. In the last six years, the mayor only received five petitions to council and denied all but one, including mine.
The mayor and council set their sights on volunteer committees. Disbanding honest citizens input into Budget, CRA, Students etc. They then gave themselves a handsome stipend for the "extra work" that no citizens asked them to do. All newly elected council members do not keep their campaign promises instead vote for "stakeholder" committees, and restrictive rules to limit citizens from input.
The last nail in the coffin: Mayor and Council approve at June 4 meeting to put citizens input last on the agenda instead of first as it has been for years. This prompts the city manager, as stated in The Breeze, to say I will send my staff home as keeping them for input time is late.
Finally, I predict, the snowball melts when the Mayor and council strike citizens input time from the meeting agenda all together. We don't need it, says the mayor and council, we had our minds made up already.
Can we go home now?
Lou Navarra
Cape Coral