PUNTA GORDA — Vice Mayor Bill Dryburgh says he doesn’t want to penalize Punta Gorda residents for the millions of dollars in hurricane damage to their seawalls.
“We are told that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will only pay for 90% of the damage to the seawalls in Punta Gorda,” Dryburgh said. “That leaves about a $4.5 million shortfall. We have some of that but not all of it.”
The city spent more than $3,300 for Dryburgh and Mayor Lynne Matthews, along with City Manager Greg Murray and a lobbyist, to travel to Tallahassee last week to ask lawmakers for state funding to pay for seawalls.
During the Florida League of Cities Legislative Days, the mayor made the same pitch to Florida House leader Michael Grant in Tallahassee as she did when he was at the Punta Gorda Isles Civic Association in early December for the Charlotte County Legislative Delegation meeting.
Grant remembered, asking Matthews about the seawalls when they greeted each other in Grant’s Tallahassee office.
Dryburgh said the conversation with Grant was the same while meeting with Sen. Ben Albritton; Rep. Spencer Roach; Kim Cramer of the Governor’s Office of Policy & Budget and Sen. Jason Brodeur.