Boca Grande residents, attorneys, speak to parking issue at Lee County meet

Gasparilla Island residents, as well as two attorneys, came out to the Tuesday morning Lee County Board of County Commissioners meeting to speak to a proposed parking discussion that was coming before the board. It was not on the agenda.

Michael Whitt, an attorney for Hahn Loeser, came on behalf of Lighthouse United Methodist and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.

“We were told two weeks ago that the proposed ordinance was going to be an agenda item,” Whitt said. 

New to the speakers was attorney Neale Montgomery, a partner of the Pavese Law Firm in Fort Myers. She said that she represented “some of the property owners and businesses on Boca Grande.”

The issue of Boca Grande parking had been set to come up as an item. At the meeting, Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane offered that the reason they did not have a public meeting was that there were only four of the five commissioners in attendance.

Other speakers included residents Hugh Sullivan, Louis Sarkes, Mary O’Bannon and Jay and Kim Whipple. From the business side, Marco Meola, co-owner of the South Beach restaurant spoke, as well as Gary Cross, executive director of the Boca Grande Chamber of Commerce.

You can follow the issue at bocagrande.com/parking. Below is the video feed of the public comment period, where different citizens speak to all manner of Lee County issues. The residents and speakers are almost all in sequence: