Ruane discusses island topics of interest at GPICA meeting
Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane addressed five topics of interest to the island community at the monthly Greater Pine Island Civic Association meeting held Dec. 2 at First Baptist Church of Pine Island. The topics were selected by the GPICA Board.
Board Treasurer/Secretary Steve Eldredge opened the meeting and gave members an update regarding the recent Development/Zoning Committee, of which he is the head. He thanked volunteers for their hard work as well as their willingness to be on the team.
“We’ve already had a meeting — a lot of hard work — we’ve already had our first training session. I’ve gotten very familiar with all of the Lee County services where we could go look up information,” Eldredge said.
Ruane began by addressing the topic of 2020 Conservation in regard to activist groups, who, he said, claim Lee County no longer wants to fund 2020 properties. This, he emphasized, is the furthest thing from the truth.
“Lee County has historically looked at any piece of property that makes sense. We have a sub-committee which basically looks at each property that we have for consideration and they score it based on merit,” Ruane said.
When economies begin to slow down, he explained, there tends to be a more robust list of 2020 properties submitted to the county for consideration. When developers are unable to develop property, they may believe it’s easier to give it to the county, feeling the county may purchase the property for 2020, he said, explaining that this is not the normal process.
“Currently, there’s $60 million worth of properties that have been submitted to Lee County and it’s continued to grow…the challenge we have is, how do we continue to buy properties without being inundated with properties that don’t make sense for 2020?” Ruane said.
Many constituents, he said, have indicated that they would like 2020 properties used for parks, which leaves the county with maintenance responsibilities as well as original development plans which include walking and or hiking trails.
“Despite the fact that we have in excess of a thousand parks in Lee County, we now have 37,000 acres worth of 2020 property, that we’re trying to develop, in really, reaction, to what the constituents asked us for,” Ruane said.
Ruane said he has requested a workshop so the public can be made aware of the overwhelming demand from different developers asking Lee County to buy their property. His biggest concern, he said, is that he does not want developers to believe when they cannot develop their property that the county is obligated to purchase it.
The 2020 program makes sense overall, he said.
“It does balance growth in a way I think is helpful and it really is an underlying quality for water quality that people don’t realize — the less development, the less run-off, the less issues you have and then you have less impediments in the water,” Ruane said.
The next item Ruane addressed was the retirement of aging development orders. The problem with issued development orders, he said, is that there is a very small amount of legislation required within a certain period of time in order to keep a project active. He’s found a proactive way to handle this issue, he said, is to call whoever has the order and simply ask if they plan to develop the property.
“We’ve been making significant progress with it,” Ruane said.
The next article on the meeting agenda was water quality. What is needed to efficiently deal with water quality on Pine Island is to deal with septic to sewer conversion, with no cost to the homeowner, he said.
“I don’t know how to do that,” Ruane said.
When you take into account all the properties that need septic to sewer conversion, he said, it would take hundreds of millions of dollars.
“I don’t do this for money. It’s really to give back to the community. It’s something I’m proud of,” Ruane said.
Ruane said he could talk about the next item, Home Rule (the authority granted to local governments to manage their own affairs with greater autonomy from the state) all night.
“The 67 counties have one body called the Florida Association of Counties and then the Florida League of Cities represents the 413. We are certainly working with Manatee, Sarasota and a whole bunch of other communities where we’re certainly ready, willing and able to be a participant of those … so to add on to be a participant takes some doing, and obviously since the issue is near and dear to our hearts, we go and listen to the presentations of what’s going on, Ruane said.
The last agenda item was the Tourist Development Council Fund, which Ruane said is basically a bed tax.
“It is something that has 5 pennies to it — 2½ pennies go to marketing, 1½ pennies go to beach and shorelines and 1 penny goes to attractions,” Ruane said.
Everything has to have a legislative finding when you are promoting tourism, he said, in regards to rebuilding the Pineland Post Office.
To see this meeting in its entirety, go to the Greater Pine Island Civic Association Facebook page
The next GPICA meeting will be held on Jan. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Pine Island, 5363 Avenue D, Bokeelia.
To reach PAULETTE LeBLANC / pleblanc@breezenewspapers.com, please email