Letters to the editor for Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Help bring Christmas in Immokalee
It has been almost 40 years since wonderful Mary Evans served warm food from her side window to her Immokalee neighbors for the Christmas holidays. When Mary became too ill to continue, the Northside Naples Kiwanis Club stepped in to carry on the tradition of Christmas in Immokalee. We continue to provide seasonal cheer for these families. COVID 19 will still not stop us, but we need your help.
On Saturday, Dec. 18, at 10 a.m., this year held at the Immokalee County Park, 321 N. 1st Street, children will come hoping for a Christmas gift. This year, due to the continuing need for social distancing, changes have had to be made. A prepacked holiday meal will be distributed. There will be separate areas for Immokalee families driving through and those walking to the park. Monetary donations are critical to ensure that every child receives a present. Often it is the only gift under their tree.
Please send a tax deductible donation to: Kiwanis Club of Northside Naples, POB 110333, Naples FL 34108 or donate via PayPal on our website. For more information about the event email naplesmarianne@gmail.com or visit our website at www.northsidenapleskiwanis.portalbuzz.com to donate or check out our Facebook page. On behalf of the children and families we serve, thank you!
Marianne St Johns, Naples
Reducing waterway pollution
I am seeing numerous recommendations to solve lawn fertilizer runoff that adds to river and waterway pollution such as algae. Even to stop all lawn fertilizing and go au naturel. I have seen au naturel in Arizona and it’s not pretty. I have had three homes in Florida over the years and mitigated runoff by at least 50 percent.
If there were no homes covering the ground, the ground would absorb all the water from rain under normal rainfall. However, homes, with their roofs and driveways, send more than the ground they cover into the streets, lakes, and retention ponds. The street water drains into storm drains that lead to the nearest lake or canal system if there are no lakes. The community lakes, when above their control or design level, send that extra water to the canal system too.
My method for mitigation is simple and should be made mandatory for all new construction. At least give government incentives to existing homeowners to make a few simple changes. If all the rain from our roofs, driveways, and streets went directly to the storm drains the lawns would be able to absorb normal rainfall without runoff. One would be amazed how little lawn is visible from an aerial view of a typical homesite. Most of that view does not absorb water.
I always have a home with rain gutters all the way around the roof. That leaves about four downspouts to handle all the water that will exit to the lawns. If the back of the home sits next to a lake I run inexpensive piping just under the lawn either directly into the lake or to a drain at its edge. The edge method is to satisfy building codes and piping into a lake. At least the runoff from a drain so close to the water’s edge leaves very little water running across the lawn and picking up fertilizer. If there are no lakes near the back I have the gutters sloped to the front. In the front I run similar piping to the street or a drain at the edge of the lawn.
The water from the driveway already runs into the street. Another method is to add elbows from side downspouts so they exit onto the driveway. Thus avoiding the need for piping in the front. An added dividend from all the above is this method reduces runoff that affects fish or other wildlife in or on the lakes or canals. It is a conservative estimate that the lawn runoff is reduced by at least 50 percent.
John Piccolo, Estero
Information missing at Pine Lakes hearing
This newspaper's “Neighbors battle development” report surrounding Pine Lakes Country Club (PLCC) leaves the term investigative local reporting a lost-in-the-past artform.
A billion-dollar business, Equity Lifestyles Properties (ELS), with obvious big control of our governmental oversight, coupled with little availability for public input, makes for a fully out-of-balance system.
In the case before Lee County hearing examiner, true investigative reporting was missed and needed.
Imposed limits of information to be input at this hearing, due to county and state regulations, but dangerously coupled with one-sided legal objections without the benefit of judges or juries, was in full view from the beginning.
I presented a previously submitted-to-the-county blueprint from ELS.
This blueprint was a revision of an original 1986 blueprint supplied by Lee County.
This blueprint turned out to be an altered original blueprint, deliberately and deceptively redesigned by ELS to limit information.
The hearing examiner had an original copy, which I requested. The hearing examiner office supplied me with it by email, after the hearing concluded.
A review of original blueprint shows language and lines that confirm a frontage road. It is on property owned by ELS, leading to and from the new development, but outside PLCC.
This frontage road was never mentioned by either ELS or Lee County at the hearing.
ELS hides it, Lee County missed it, yet both documents were part of the hearing.
The truth must be considered after the hearing, and the altered blueprint must be addressed.
Ronald Thoreson, North Fort Myers
Appreciate return to local focus
It was with great interest — and appreciation — to read your editorial note asking for letters on local matters rather than what you have been printing, i.e., bashing national and state politicians.
I subscribe to learn what is happening in my community. I am chagrined as I watch you evolve into a regional paper, but understand the economics and have tried to explain the situation to others. But having the letters devolve into a section of the newspaper in which slanderous, defamatory speculation and unsourced accusations were thrown about willy-nilly has been too much for me and after 15 years as a subscriber, I have actually been wondering why I continue my subscription.
The mailbag is important to our community and provides insight into what local residents are thinking. It’s good to see it get back to its roots.
Charlotte Newton, Fort Myers
Naples post office appearance needs help
Why does our post office on Goodlette Road look so bad? Naples is a very affluent community yet our post office looks like it is poverty-stricken. The building exterior needs cleaning and the landscape is totally neglected. Can the Naples Daily News help with a fundraiser to solicit donations and bids for the work to be done? There has to be a way to improve the exterior appearance of our post office.
Cecilia Bach, Naples
Clean up eyesore
There is a true eyesore at the corner of Beach Road and Race Track Road in Bonita Springs right in front of the elementary charter school next to the RaceTrac convenience store. I hope this eyesore gets our government officials' attention to clean this location up and the rest of Bonita Springs. Our government fines property owners for their properties growing more than 15 inches which isn't near the eyesore that dominates the scenery at the location mentioned above. I feel that the business community should be fined as well. If there is no code to enforce this matter, maybe there should be. What impression does this give the children in the charter school?
Bill Kamann, Bonita Springs
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Letters to the editor for Wednesday, December 8, 2021
