Sunday signs and silent bureaucrats

Last weekend, even on Sunday, Lee County was out and about on the island putting up new parking signs. Yes, on Sunday. We’re scratching our heads as to when we last saw a government officer out on a Saturday and Sunday, except for emergency crews, parks, sheriff and during hurricane recovery.

Certainly, the signs were no emergency, but they became an emergency as signs were put up before parking passes had been issued and as businesses reopened for season. We’ll get stickers on the back of the signs with an email address for concerns. Is it proper to say “thank you,” or should we say something else?

While we cannot know, we can 99.9 percent assure you that no Lee County staffer was working last Sunday printing up parking passes for the island, or even designing them, or figuring out an administrative plan for how passes will be distributed.

This parking situation is difficult enough, as a number of island regulars from off-island have decided not to return, disgusted by the outrageously high parking ticket fines and the overall nature of the plan. To have, on top of that, no passes for returning residents when the signs are now up adds yet another unappetizing layer to an already unpalatable party dip.

Many of the island’s business owners, and most of the island managers and institutional leaders, are Charlotte County residents. We’ll see Tuesday how Charlotte County looks out for them.

Regarding lawsuits: Some might think legal actions between jurisdictions are problematic, but they happen – even here. Charlotte County, for instance, sued the old causeway owner Gaspar on behalf of GICIA and residents back in the 1980s. It was over private-company rate schedules. Currently, Fort Myers Beach is queued up to sue the Lee County School Board to stop demolition of its Beach School building, on the National Register of Historic Places. See also Osceola County v. Orange County over conservation lands, and Pinellas County v. Pasco County Property Appraiser Joiner.

Proponents of the current “tiered parking” plan for Gasparilla Island opted to trust county staff to administer and design the program. We’ve editorialized against it from the beginning, one of our main concerns being how it could be managed.

It isn’t easy to hand out and administer passes. We sell subscriptions and sell and give out our 4-Digit Phone Books to residents. That is real work and involves issues of payments and addresses. Think about the hurricane passes handed out by the Fire Department or the bridge passes most of us purchase. It’s detailed work, and there will be files on residency, work status and all manner of questions that need to be resolved.

It’s impossible to ascribe motives to vast government bureaucracies when they put up signs before issuing permits to residents. At best, it looks like the Lee County Department of Transportation is action-oriented and county administration is struggling to figure out what to do. Somewhere in between, it may not be too bold to suggest a bit of passive aggression toward this rich distant island colony 90 minutes away. You asked for it? We’ll give it to you, then.

There isn’t even a county office now on the island that is geared to walk into. Do we expect our residents to upload residential verification or go to the maintenance shed on Wheeler? And then there are passes that will be needed by hotel and cottage rental guests. How in the world are those accounted for? 

Back to signage put in front of island businesses.

You don’t do that to people. You don’t do that to people’s businesses. These are people’s livelihoods, and they’re good people. They’ve asked no special favors of government – only to be treated fairly and to do their work, sell their goods and wares without hindrance. They expect that when the government steps in, they get equal and fair treatment.

Our readers and visitors to this island are law-abiding people. They pay attention to parking signs and try to follow the law as best they can understand. They want to be reassured that their government, however indifferent, somehow actually cares one whit.

We don’t know where all of this is going, but it makes us sad.

Garland Pollard is editor of the Boca Beacon. Email your letters to editor@bocabeacon.com.