Fort Myers, FL
Two weeks ago, during an issue that gave Supervisor Carol Stanley "a rash", the board in a unanimous vote approved an outside company to examine the entire operation of the Gateway Services District. Two weeks later, Supervisor Stanley has requested the issue be put back on the agenda so they can discuss again. Is Stanley having second thoughts about the company she chose.
If you take a step back the board considering a company to examine how the district operates is like asking Pete Rose to be the Pit Boss at a blackjack table. It's like giving yourself a complete medical physical. "OK, yep, everything looks good down there." This entire self-examination has taken a year to get this far and now they are going back to the issue again. If they are going back because Supervisor Stanley's rash has cleared up and she's having second thoughts, I agree with her. She should. Not have a rash, have second thoughts. The company the board chose seemed to me to be the least qualified. It was by far the cheapest.
The reasons I believe the owner of human-resources-now.com was least qualified was because I felt she had limited knowledge of what a CDD was other than reading a few articles. Then, she went on to say things like "Your next step is to become a city". When she said that I started yelling, NO! NO! that's the wrong direction. We don't want to be a city. We want you to make the CDD smaller, maybe even make it disappear. She also said "The Gateway people have someone looking out for them". I thought to myself, does she really know this board or is she just saying what they want to hear? And, finally, she said "A CDD, this is sort of a good concept. It makes good sense"
Well, it all made sense to me after the interview. They heard what they wanted to hear. They figured this person would do the least to really look into the operation of the CDD in a serious manner. They would take care of Supervisor Ed Sichel's pet peeve and get him off their back. And everyone would go on living happily ever after. In fact, she might even find ways to make the CDD bigger and better. It was unanimous. They had to have her. So they voted 5-0 to bring her on. Until Carol Stanley requested a "revisit".
Unless the stated goal is to reduce taxes, reduce staff and squeeze $2.00 worth of work out of every $1.00 Gateway residents pay in, nothing serious will be accomplished. Perhaps this board should even hold off until November when we have a regime change and serious budget-cutters along side Ed Sichel. We want someone who's going to go in their and give this district an all-out enema. Everyone's salary, position, PENSION, the attorney, the engineers, etc etc should be examined with an eye toward reduction.
It's simple...
- How can we keep the landscaping plush?
- How can we keep the fields and dog park taken care of?
- How can we keep the pool clean?
This analysis should include a study to determine whether Gateway residents would be better off or worse off if certain aspects were turned over to Lee County. The CDD has been around long eough that such a study would provide useful information. We don't need a person to tell us whether Bill Knight uses too many paper clips.
This is taxpayer money and we should know whether it's being wasted or not. This should be the boards JOB #1. Until Bob Nielson is gone, this will be job number NONE.
