Mr. McMullen, your letter is well written and you give many factual examples to support it. However, you are dealing with people that care about one thing. That is Mr. Arceri's vision for Marco Island. The people who sit on the Council were installed there by John Arceri and a duped population of Condo owners. Mr. Arceri's vision of our community is of a first class resort community. He has big plans for our community and those plans require a lot of money. The cash shortfall has nothing to do with the Council's current efforts. They would be thinking this stuff up even if we were flush. This Council spends every waking hour of their lives looking for more ways to seperate our citizens from thier cash. That said, you are right not wrong. Thanks for the effort.

It appears that no Marco City Council, Past or present knows how to have a " BUDGET CUTTING " Session. One of the most Dangerous things about government, is it,s constant growth. While I believe that government closest to the people is the best,it is not the best when it ignores it,s residents, the State Legislature and the Governor. When will our City Leaders understand the difficult time many of our residents are facing. Many of our residents are trying to survive on fixed limited pensions. Food prices,prescriptions, gasoline and many other costs [ including new assessments from the City ]have placed these residents in debt without new City charges being dreamed up and and billed to make the future more bleak. The last two years the City added 22 new employees and now they are adding 8 more. Residents should now realize where our local government is heading. How many more employees, cars, trucks,pieces of equipment will they add? Check our city cost for fuel, insurance, repairs and planned Capital Projects, just to name a few of our ever increasing costs. Check these out for yourself.

FOSSIL: muy bueno. To the point and concise.
problem:30 or 40 people in such a small town can have quite an influence on such an 'easily influenced' population.
We might as well had 'crash test dummies' out there voting in this last election.
Aceri and his 'goons' were very effective in scaring the schtuff out of these condo associations.

Thank you Mr. McMullan for a very well spoken analysis of the current state of our governance. Mr. Arceri is indeed running Marco Island through his shill council and spokesman Wayne Waldack. His vision is to create a west coast Ft. Lauderdale by taxing the existing residents to pay for it. The additional benefit is that he forces them to leave because of the resulting high COL. This makes room for the fat cats. It appears that the masses are dumb enough to let him pull it off.

You posters above still have not gotten it through your head that almost 70% of the electorate voted for a majority of our newest Council make-up. And that was in the face of new Sewers. There were 4,000 homes (voters?) not on sewer, and yet the results were still a landslide. We are all familiar with what Politicians do for Political and Personal gain, especially the author of this letter, Mr. McMullan. This law that was passed by the State Legislature was done for Political reasons and has placed a burden on all citeis in Florida. Time and research will tell just how many cities pass special assessments and increase rates on other revenue sources to make up for a portion of their deficits (some already have in anticipation of the new law). It is a credit to Marco island leadership that we were running "close to the best" as far as Budget and expenses. That is why, with the shortfall, we not only need to become more efficient, but look to other sources for revenue. I dare anybody to compare our budget, City Staffing, Milage rate, etc with any other City in Florida. You will see that there is nothing, OR NOBODY, to complain about as we rise to the top in efficiency. But, Mr. McMullan, Fossill and SmokeyJoe are not interested in facts as I have already offered to work with some of them on getting information to disprove their some of their previous statements and they have not taken me up on my offer.
So, we can look forward to the next election where, without sewers, the electorate will again speak and vote for those that are positive about our future and not Mr. Neylon or Mr. Hall. It just amazes me how some people just cannot enjoy Paradise and move on from realizing that their opinion is a very minority opinion. Don't blame somebody else, blame yourself.
Ed Issler

Issler, you deserve to pay more because you believe your own crap. Marco's voters did NOT vote to increase their taxes or to have more assessments imposed upon them. That said, Marco's voters were warned that this might occur by the opponents of those who won the election. Now you have it. The electorate only has itself to blame, along with John Arceri and yourself.

Issler, you stated above that “almost 70% of the electorate voted for a majority of our newest Council make-up.” I’ve noticed that you use that particular number “almost 70%” in a lot of your posts recently.

I said before that I didn’t know if your calculation of “almost 70%” is an example of your poor math ability and analytical skills, or of your basic dishonesty. So let me be explicit this time—how do you calculate that “almost 70% of the electorate voted for a majority of our newest Council make-up?”

Here’s what I calculate. I went to the Collier County Election website and found the results of the January 2008 election here: http://www.colliervotes.com/results.a...

Extracting Marco’s results:

Candidates-------Votes----% of Votes
Joe Batte--------3625--------10.628%
Andrew Guidry--3231---------9.473%
Roger Hall-------3333---------9.772%
Butch Neylon----3322---------9.739%
…..Subtotal-----13511-------39.611%

Jerry Gibson------5062-----14.841%
Frank Recker-----5352-----15.691%
Bill Trotter--------5176-----15.175%
Wayne Waldack--5008-----14.682%
…..Subtotal------20598-----60.389%

So the group of elected councilors polled 60.389% of the vote; the other four candidates polled 39.611%.

Issler, did you round up 60.389% to 70%? No wonder people don’t take you up on your offers to help them “analyze” things!

Hey Issler, explain to me why your cohorts on the council have managed to create ways of raising the cost of living on this island in the little time they have been in office and continue to as we speak? I didn't hear that in all their campaign promises. Also that it could be justified that we hire 8 new city employees at this time? So far it seems like my taxes, water/sewer bill, electric bill and most likely a bridge toll will be the great accomplishment of your buddies. How do you support your thought process?