Tag: NoPaywall

First hatchlings to come; big nesting females still get stuck in holes

BY ARLENE HALL,BGSTA SECRETARY This week, our loggerhead turtle mothers laid their 100th nest of the season. It will be interesting to see how May 2025 compares to May 2024’s activity. Final...

Five miles of bike path landscaping under way

BY THE GICIA The Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association Bike Path restoration projects are well underway. The Town Park project between Third and Fifth Streets is in the...

How we got here: A chronology of parking discussions in Boca Grande

BY MARCY SHORTUSE Editor’s Note: This August, Lee County commissioners are scheduled to vote on an ordinance related to parking in Boca Grande. It could contain a sweeping revision of current...

Old Boca Grande plat, history, figures in current Lee County parking discussion

Editor’s Note: Last month, the Boca Beacon filed a public records request with Lee County on issues related to Boca Grande parking. In the files, there are interesting tidbits related to...

Busy Memorial Day, but traffic just under last year on weekend

On Saturday, May 24, during the Boca H2O Festival, a teenage boy was struck by a boat propeller, breaking his leg. The festival is held in the water off the sandbar between Gasparilla Island...

Night-blooming cereus makes show behind Temptation

Residents have been heading out to the GICIA Bike Path, and other locations across island, to visit night-blooming cereuses. Resident Ellen Cornwell was out Monday evening and photographed the...

No formal county parking proposal from Lee County

Lee County is currently working on an ordinance revising parking regulations in Boca Grande. While there is a draft version circulating on island, the county was not ready to share a new version...

County plans $1.7 million tennis, pickleball facility

On the agenda for the next Lee County Commissioners meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 3 is the item to approve the contract to renovate Wheeler Road Community Park. Item Number 19 on...

COLUMNS: BART DESTEFANO

Restrictions on beach parking will affect livelihoods BY BART DESTEFANO,SOUTH BEACH BAR & GRILL I am writing in response to the proposed restricted parking measures in Boca Grande. While...

Englewood beach merchants, Boca Grande fast recovery

May 29, 2025
Garland Pollard
Editorial

Here in Boca Grande, during this hurricane cleanup, we have been well served by Lee County and its various departments, from Parks and Recreation to DOT. There had been a past sense, quite...