Step back from ICE presence
Fortunately ICE and our local law enforcement agencies haven’t shot anyone they have been randomly detaining in SWFL. Now that ICE is directed not to stop vehicles, it’s time our local police and sheriff’s departments step back from their heavy presence with ICE in the Pine Manor and Palm Beach Blvd. neighborhoods. It will no longer take 3 sheriff’s cars, 2 ICE vehicles, and a transport van to randomly stop pedestrians or people on bikes as they have been doing throughout Lee and Collier counties for months. I can’t think of a reason pedestrians and bike riders would be stopped by ICE anyway except for the color of their skin. It’s time our local governments stop facilitating ICE to meet the arbitrary goal of 3,000 detentions a day. What has the federal government paid Lee County Sheriff’s Dept. so far this year for assisting ICE?
Barb McFarlane, Fort Myers
Support single-member districts
If you are a regular reader of Mailbag, you will know that I have recently been railing about the Lee County Commission’s failure to collect full impact fees from developers. (If you are not familiar with this issue, please research it because you are paying for development whether you like it or not.) Well folks, here’s a chance to make a difference. On the ballot will be an opportunity to vote for single-member districts. That means that only the voters in your district get to vote for the person who will represent you. Now, everybody in the county can vote for your district representative. It’s absurd, but that’s the way the developers like it because they can give five well-known people lots of cash to win every district countywide. Does anyone wonder how those five well-funded commissioners will vote on development? It’s happening now and we all hate it, but voting for single-member districts will give us the chance to tap the brakes on development.
My example will be Amanda Cochran. Her campaign literature asserts that “65% of district 5 voters choose Amanda Cochrane“ but she eventually lost to the at-large candidate who was well-funded by developers. Candidates are required to disclose campaign contributions and Amanda has accepted none from developers in the current election. All the other county commissioners live off of that money. She deserves your vote for a reconsideration of development. Single-member districts also deserve your vote so we don’t have to vote for Amanda again, just let the folks of Alva handle that like they tried to before. And the rest of us will handle voting for candidates in our respective districts — candidates not bought and paid for by developers if we vet them properly…