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Where are the $igns to our $leepy little town?

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July 12, 2024
By Garland Pollard

While there is no official plan for parking for Boca Grande from Lee County, county officials are already circulating a draft list of ideas for this island and parking. The Beacon is sorting through them.

In the proposal is a sign board and electronic parking system. Another item is a two-hour parking limit. These would be combined with drastic restrictions to “public beach” parking. These were part of a “Gasparilla Island Parking Updates- DRAFT Proposal” memo and email sent May 6 to Commissioner Kevin Ruane, as well as other staff including County Manager Dave Harner. 

“Attached you will find an updated draft version of the Gasparilla Island Parking Updates based on our discussion earlier today,” wrote Assistant County Manager Marc B. Mora. “Please review and comment at your leisure.”

The full document has seven items relating to a parking plan, including enforcement. The elements of the sign program would be, according to separate county documents, a kiosk machine, electronic parking signage that displays available parking (estimated $15K plus $150 monthly license fee) and two-hour parking maximum signs with Q-code and “enforcement verbiage.”

What is most concerning in the email is not that the county staff would be researching possibilities for the island. What is worrying is that the county has gone as far as to look at signage, a vendor and costs, well before details have been presented to the community. The look, which is troubling at minimum (and we assume not exactly what we would get), reminds one of a parking lot at a stadium or airport.

A separate revision to the county code circulated noted that the parking fees would be for two areas, namely 5th Street Beach access, for $2 an hour, and Downtown Boca Grande, for $1 an hour. The draft document AC-11-9, would require that “parking in a metered public parking space in Downtown Boca Grande is limited to a maximum duration of two hours.” So many questions:

• Is the signage legal under the Gasparilla Island Conservation District Act of 1980?

• Where would you put such signage, assuming anyone would actually want it?

• Assuming Charlotte County or the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority would even want the parking lot available sign, if the beach parking lots were showing as ‘full’ would anyone come for a meal, or just drive off?

• How would a system count the spaces, which are not marked, and often just shells by the side of the road?

• Exactly which parts of downtown have the two-hour parking? 

• How would free private parking lot owners, including the GICIA, be affected by a fee on public parking?

• Does $4, atop a $6 bridge toll, make people wish to come to Boca Grande to shop, or for a meal? Is there an economic analysis, as it will change public behavior?

• Most of the public beach parking that the county refers to (misnamed with old Lee County names) is actually about State Park lots, which are sand, and not marked.

• Does the state have to give revenue to Lee County, through the vendor, if Lee County were to, hypothetically, somehow get the state in on the parking scheme?

• Does a Charlotte County resident at Sea Oats or elsewhere get a resident pass to go to the Post Office or beach, or do they have to pay like the other visitors?

These are all important questions. But what is unfortunate, to say the least, is that this information is not being shared with locals, who might have valuable insights on how we can balance the popularity of the island, with the right of its businesses and churches to survive.

The other issue is visual. Looking at the sign, and the discussions about the program, what is clearly evident is that such a program would drastically change the feel of the island, and not necessarily for the better. What is glorious about the island is that it is not cluttered, like Placida, with all manner of nanny-ish signage and roadside junk and rules.

Our sleepy little island, so quiet this summer, will not look sleepy any more.

Garland Pollard is editor of the Beacon. Email letters and comments to editor@bocabeacon.com. 

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