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Events are moving fast. The new Marco Island City Council is currently considering issues that will have significant long-term impacts on its residents. I need your input and guidance.

Therefore, I am requesting the public’s attendance at a forum, which will be held in the Community Room at the city’s new police building (where City Council and Planning Board meetings are held), on June 19 beginning at 7 p.m.

Hopefully, other City Council members will be able to attend to hear your views on such topics as the following:

-- Replacement of the Judge S.S. Jolley Bridge: I personally believe that we can put this issue on the back burner. It is and will hopefully continue to be the state’s responsibility to totally fund its replacement; the standard formula currently is that the feds pay 80 percent and the state and Collier County each pay 10 percent. Nonetheless, the City Council did vote to go forward with the second phase of the study so this issue will be coming back to the city for its consideration.

-- Fire district assessment: There is much confusion about this issue. The most important fact is that this new assessment on your tax bill will be included under the cap on expenditures as established by the city charter. Its primary purpose is to assign costs of fire-protection service in a more equitable manner based on the number of calls and equipment needed to respond. There are definitely winners and losers in this case based on the use of property, e.g., the assignment of costs to a vacant lot will go down, but the costs to service commercial/industrial will go up.

-- Lee County Electric Cooperative takeover: This one really concerns me. Now is not the time to be considering this question. We have already bitten off more than we can chew with the acquisition of the water/sewer system (which we are spending megabucks trying to fix and on the extension of the sewer system over the next five-plus years). LCEC has maintained its system and has provided excellent service to the island. If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.

-- General budget: Given the shortage of discretionary money, should the city continue to fund worthwhile events such as Christmas Island Style, July Fourth fireworks and other requests from nonprofit organizations, or should the city direct what little money it has to infrastructure projects? My personal opinion is that we need to build back our reserves which have been depleted before allocating it to non-emergency infrastructure projects. Who knows when another Wilma will visit?

I need your input. These are important issues that will affect us all, so please attend the forum. I have been informed that our new city manager, Steve Thompson, along with Fire Chief Mike Murphy and Finance Director Bill Harrison will be in attendance to help answer questions as well as listen to your thoughts. If you are unable to attend for whatever reason, please e-mail me your thoughts at ckiester@cityofmarcoisland.com, which I will share with those in attendance.