Affordable Housing & Common Sense

Below is a letter from Leelo-Dianne Bush, who is running for Cape Coral City Council, District 1. Bear

"It surprises me how many are moaning and groaning over the price of homes in Cape Coral. It was not that long ago... a couple years maybe, that residents were thrilled to see the value of their homes increase. The increase in values along with low interest rates, allowed many to refinance, pull equity from their homes and reinvest in other ways. It allowed our residents to make improvements to their existing homes, lower their payments or move up to a bigger, nicer home that better met their needs.
Now suddenly, many are longing for years gone by, where you could purchase a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath pool home for under $100 thousand. Back then, the "good 'ole days" were not really so good.
When I bought my current home, about 10 years ago, it concerned me that if I ever needed to sell it, would I be able to find a buyer... and worse yet, would I have to take a loss in the sale after paying associated seller costs?
Obviously, with higher values, come higher taxes. That is unavoidable, but city council can help substantially, by lowering the millage rate. Although some on council brag they have consistently lowered the millage rate, these have been token decreases and were made possible, not because of more responsible spending practices, but rather by retirement of old city debt. Then, city council decided to take on an additional $100 million of new debt and once again put residents in a strangle-hold with more debt ($11 million of which is for one new municipal charter school).
But let's look at who is really to blame for higher home prices. It is not the city government. It is the real estate market... and bottom line... it is the home buyers. If they were not willing to pay these high prices, the prices would not go up. It all relates to supply and demand. And as our city grows, we need more services and infrastructure for our residents, which can be accomodated by closer monitoring of impact fees.
And it is not the place of city government to mandate developers build more lower cost housing. That would be interfering with our nation's free enterprise system, might be unconstitutional and may create an unfavorable business climate.
In today's Daily Breeze, one of my quotes was taken out of context when I discussed the difference between impact fees in Cape Coral vs. other Southwest Florida communities. I did not mean to infer that we should raise ours because others were higher. Certainly we should only have fees that are a true representation of the financial requirements for our municipal services. But at the same time, council should not be timid about raising impact fees for fear that we would lose new residents to other communities, thus making it more difficult for Cape Coral builders to sell their homes. We can have the best of both worlds.
I believe we need to use wisdom and common sense when determining our fees. We can still keep them lower than other communities, but we can raise them to adequately cover our costs, so that we don't have huge increases in our utility fees for expansion, like council just approved.
I do have a solution to what the city can do, to help make housing more affordable, and it has nothing to do with the actual cost of homes. The city can ensure that their employees are paid adequately for the work they perform. The city can also do more to encourage businesses to bring better paying jobs to Cape Coral.
We need to take a common sense approach to affordable housing. While we can't control the price of land and homes, we can make a tangible difference in wages paid in our area.
Another thing we can do is what many other cities do. The city can enforce rent control for apartments. I would have to study this more, to determine whether I would support rent control, but I just mention it as an option.
It's time we stop talking about what we can't do. We can't turn back the clock and we can't control the price of homes. But we can raise wages and we can bring in better paying jobs. And we need to be patient with the process.
Survival is about re-creating yourself to meet the changing times. And the one thing that will never change, is that things will always change.
Leelo-Dianne Bush
Candidate for Cape Coral City Council
District 1

Primary Election Results

The voters have spoken and results are in. Below are the top two vote-getters in each primary race, in decending order of votes received. Congratulations to the winners, who will now move on to the general election.

Mayor
Eric Feichthaler
Arnold Kempe

District 1
Jim Jeffers
Leelo-Dianne Bush

District 6
Tim Day
Tom Clark

Please post your comments and tell us your thoughts. Did the results offer you any surprises?
Bear

Exit Poll Results - Post Yours Here!

If you have taken, are taking or will take an exit poll, please post your results here. Please tell the location of the polling place where you asked exiting voters their choices, and the date and time you took your poll. We want to report your "unofficial" findings as soon as they are available on who is leading in any of the primary races.
Bear

43-Hour Countdown to Primary

Have you voted yet? I did, at around noon Saturday, thanks to the opportunity to vote early.
Although over 1000 Cape residents have already cast their ballots, this primary is far from over.

There are about 43 hours left until the official opening of the 40-some polling places throughout Cape Coral, for the March 1st primary elections.

A variety of organizations have held candidate forums, handed out donuts and coffee at the Lee County Government Complex and advertised the election. Judging by the signs posted, can anyone possibly have missed this campaign season????

But what have been the most notable sparks? Well, first there was the candidacy of proclaimed atheist, Tom Clark, for the District 6 council seat. Then there was the controversial attempt by one local paper to discredit a legitimate candidate on their front page... and most recently the breaking news story of one mayoral candidate's second mortgage to help finance his own campaign?

Are we to believe that this election should be decided based on who does not believe, who does believe and chooses to educate themself, and who risks their own money to help change our city? Is it really necessary for the news media to CREATE controversy and CREATE issues?

Let's talk about the REAL issues... what factors will decide your vote?
Bear

Let's get the news out - fast

You may recall that during last fall's presidential campaigns, bloggers were breaking stories before they reached tv, newspaper (traditional media). We found out that syndicated media no longer had a strangle-hold on which news we became informed about. Enter the newly legitimized media outlets - internet blogs!

Blogs are not only tools for us to react to news, but they are the best, fastest way to broadcast news to the public. And this is proof the blog concept works not only on the national level, but right here in Cape Coral.

So check back often for information on local politics and issues. You may well read it here first.
Bear