Biden's billion: What should Lee County do with the Hurricane Ian money? 10 things to know
Fort Myers Beach residents said Thursday night that $1.1 billion could go a long way toward their battered island's challenging redevelopment after Hurricane Ian's Sept. 28 pounding.
Lee County Recovery Task Force members rolled into the DiamondHead Beach Resort as part of their 17 town hall tour, trying to help figure out what to do with money that fell in their lap from President Biden's administration. More than 100 residents were able to share their thoughts through live polling conducted at the Fort Myers Beach gathering. A simultaneous Thursday session was also held at Heights Elementary School in the south Fort Myers area. Here are 10 things to know.
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1. What is the Lee County Recovery Task Force, and what is its goal?
The group was formed as a committee of Lee County leaders to include representatives of the various communities and public safety agencies to advise on hurricane recovery and rebuilding. The goal: Taking all measures possible to minimize the damage from the next storm after suffering through one of the costliest hurricanes in history.
"The creation of a Lee County recovery task force is based on a national disaster recovery framework provided by Homeland Security as well as evaluating lessons learned from the most catastrophic events in Florida and in the nation," Chairman Kevin Ruane said. "These include Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Irma, California fires, Hurricane Katrina and many more."
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2. Who are the members of the task force, and where are they from?
Ruane, Lee County commissioner.
Bill Veach, Fort Myers Beach council member.
John Gunter, Cape Coral mayor.
John McLain, Estero mayor.
Kevin Anderson, Fort Myers mayor.
Chris Corrie, Bonita Springs council member.
Holly Smith, Sanibel council member.
John Holloway, Lee County undersheriff.
Robert Dilallo, Lehigh Acres fire chief.
Armor Persons, School Board chairman.
Jenna Persons-Mulicka, District 78 house representative.
Matt Caldwell, property appraiser.
David Collins, Lee Health board member.
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3. What is ResilientLee, and what is the significance of the name?
ResilientLee is the name of the task force's public engagement effort. That ties into the mission: The Biden administration awarded the $1.1 billion through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for resilience programs and rebuilding.
"Hurricane Ian looks like the cost is right now projected to be $113 billion. We in Lee County have sustained almost a third of that. This potentially is the No. 3 most costliest storm, with Hurricane Harvey and Katrina in front of it with $125 billion," Ruane said Thursday night. "The task force will work together to develop innovative and resilient solutions to support the rebuilding of Lee."
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4. Who decides how the $1.1 billion in federal money is used in Lee?
While the task force serves in an advisory role, the county has created an Office of Strategic Resources & Government Affairs to supervise use of the funds.
"We're in this community engagement portion of the time frame, driving toward the Dec. 5 Lee County Board of Commissioners board meeting where they will vote to adopt the ReslientLee plan," the Collaboratory's Jon Romine, who is helping guide the town halls, said Thursday night.
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5. What is part of the focus in determining a wider, big picture strategy?
The task force topics include housing, infrastructure, health, social services, education, natural resources, business, workforce and cultural aspects. The aim is to study and address needs and develop viable solutions that can be funded. It all comes down to what Lee County should become after Hurricane Ian.
"As you look at those parts, they are what makes up our community as one flows into the other," Ruane said. "The task force will assess the impact on the community and develop a master plan from the assessment — needs identified along with the potential funding sources, and by December 2023, an overall recovery and resilient plan will be presented. (The) goal is to help Lee County gain needed resources to rebuild and emerge even stronger than ever."
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6. What were top priorities for Fort Myers Beach residents Thursday?
Four consistent themes: Preserving residential neighborhoods, businesses and the environment, and having affordable housing, based on the polling of participants at DiamondHead and online via cell phones and computers.
"Housing was a challenge before. Hurricane Ian only made it more challenging," Romine said, noting some of the key words used in the answers residents gave. "Home and small town are still the two that really stand out. Paradise, eclectic, walkable, affordable — all very important as well."
That might have been reflected most in a question on whether there's support for higher density. A third said no, with another 55% saying only if a public benefit comes out of it, such as workplace or affordable housing. Meeting observer Lisa Glass-McKenzie was one of many who echoed the sentiment: "Keep (it) homey, not big buildings."
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7. Beyond Biden's $1.1 billion, what else will the task force address?
"The objective really is to try to have one voice when we're advocating for any type of funding. Up in Tallahassee, there's opportunities," Ruane said, adding there's additional federal cash to pursue as well. "There's 26 different agencies that we'll actually go through, and our job is to try to continue to advocate for our community. (HUD) indicated that our unmet need is $1.1 billion. I think they're missing a zero. It should probably be more like $10 billion. That's going to be our job to advocate."
Veach agrees.
"The funding that's coming our way is very complicated," Veach said Thursday night. Ruane is "very keen on trying to use as many different funding sources as possible so we can stretch this $1.1 billion further. It sounds like an enormous amount of money, but when you try to hit some of these very expensive projects like workforce housing and some resiliency things, it's going to go in a hurry. . . . They say where there's chaos, there's opportunity. We have a lot of chaos."
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8, Who are stakeholders, and what are examples of discussion topics?
In addition to residents, the task force is hearing from businesses, government and non-profits. Through Thursday night, the panel has conducted nine town halls in Fort Myers Beach, Fort Myers, North Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Sanibel, Gateway, Pine Island, the Iona area and San Carlos Park. The topics have included factors such as septic tanks, manufactured home parks and the chronic issues with canals and drainage ditches.
"The collaboration also allows increased public-private non-profit community partnerships and innovative ideas for recovering and rebuilding," said Ruane, who noted Thursday night how far reaching the storm was. "For the first time in history, we can indicate that debris was picked up in areas that never was picked up historically."
9, If FMB was Ian's ground zero, how does it help to have Ruane as chair?
As a long time coastal resident who was Sanibel mayor for a dozen years before serving as commissioner of heavily gulfside District 1, Ruane can be a help for the Beach, Veach said.
"He's a beach guy. He's an island guy. He gets us. He's lived in this environment," Veach said. "He knows the pros and cons of living on the beach. He knows about the traffic. He knows about the weather. He knows about tourism. He knows about all this. It's good to have him as the chair because he understands what we're going through."
Ruane said his district that includes Sanibel-Captiva, Southwest Cape Coral, Pine Island and Boca Grande "sustained about 65% of the total damage. (If) I had your city, I would probably have 95% of the damage. But we need to obviously work together as one. We want to try to identify as many things as we possibly can."
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10. When are future meetings in Lee, and how do you participate?
Residents who can't make it to a particular session in their neighborhood can go to another ResilientLee program or take part in Zoom sessions that they can sign up for at the https://www.resilientlee.com/ site.
"You can go to any of them," Romine said. "There's plenty of opportunity for folks to participate in these town halls."
All sessions, with a few held concurrently in a pair of locations, are from 6 to 8 p.m. except for Boca Grande's 4 to 6 p.m.
May 8: Spanish language gathering via Zoom only
May 9: River Hall Elementary, Alva
May 9: East County Regional Library, Lehigh Acres
May 10: Cape Coral City Hall
May 11: Estero Recreation Center
May 16: Gathering via Zoom only
May 17: Boca Grande Community Center
May 24: Dunbar High School
Based at the Naples Daily News, Columnist Phil Fernandez (pfernandez@gannett.com) writes In the Know as part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, which supplemented this report. Support Democracy and subscribe to a newspaper.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: What to do with Lee's $1B in Hurricane Ian money. Here's what we know.
