Parking meeting set for Monday; invite for all this fall
Editor’s Note: Due to a family emergency, this has been postponed.
Sue Sligar of Gilchrist Interiors has invited Vice Chairman Kevin Ruane, who represents the island as District 1 Commissioner on the Lee County Board of County Commissioners, to come to the Community Center on Monday, July 8 to meet with “owners of shops and restaurants in the center of town.”
“It would be really nice to hear from him,” said Sligar, reached Tuesday. “I am hearing people say we want to hear from Ruane.”
Sligar, who spoke at a commission meeting Tuesday, June 4 in Fort Myers in favor of a parking plan, said that the idea for the meeting came after visiting with other shop owners. So far she had heard from about 17 respondents. “I didn’t mean for this to turn into a big thing,” said Sligar.
The board voted 4-0 on June 4 to have Ruane craft a plan for the island.
Meanwhile, Larry Hannah, a member of Lighthouse United Methodist Church of Boca Grande, has invited all of the commissioners to come to Boca Grande on either Nov. 12, 13 or 14 for an open forum for all concerned citizens. The emailed letter he sent was unconnected to Sligar’s effort.
“This time was selected because most of the residents of Boca Grande start returning to the South starting in mid-October each year, hence we would have a better representation of the residents,” Hannah wrote in the letter. “There have been mixed messages coming across about parking in the central business district as well as the Gilchrist median and the finger streets running from 1st Street to 17th Street.
Hannah, reached by phone this week, said that his goal is that “all the people that have an interest in Boca Grande have a voice and are able to be heard by the commission.”
