a message from your publisher… Reg Buxton

Reg Buxton Publisher

Our government at all levels is in theory to work for the betterment of its citizens. Let’s start at the local level and work our way up:

Naples City
Storm Water project was approved by City Council in early 2020. As of March 2023 it is in final stages of approval by the City Council. Recommend that you check the current cost three years later plus what are the citizens of Naples getting for it compared to 2020. Naples Beach Club transformation was approved in 2020 with an expected early opening the Fall of 2023 with a full opening by January/February 2024. How is that working out?

The Old Naples Hotel was a new boutique hotel slated for Broad Avenue and Third Street. Overall approval was granted in early 2018 to proceed with the project. The cleared ground is now a grass area with no signs of construction.

Collier County
Affordable housing is a hot button issue. Upon moving to Naples/Collier County over 30 years ago this was a problem then and has grown in size every year since.

The past three decades have seen the same problems come to the forefront time and time again including their existence today. There have been countless committees formed to tackle the issues. If you look at the notes from the very first one and then look at notes from the committees over the years their resolutions to solving the problems look very similar.

Mental health support continues to be a great need in Collier County. We are hundreds of beds short to treat. Through a special one percent sales tax that will sunset soon we will cut into the shortage. By the time the new beds/services are finished we will be back to a shortage due to population growth. What is the plan to fill the void? It should be in the planning stage
now!

Roads or should we say lack there of? I served as chair on the Collier County MPO and on the state MPO Board of Governor’s 2016-2020. We are just now building roads we approved then. The take away here is roads do not come in a kit form, there are many steps from approval until build. How are we doing keeping the pipeline full for future roads?

United States
Social Security has been on life support for years and widely known that it will run out of money by the mid 2030s. Some of this has to do with the money collected for it being used elsewhere. If you look back over the years at the Federal Government and you will see this problem brought up many times.

All agree the care of our elderly is of the upmost importance. Ensuring as a nation their needs are addressed and provisions made for housing/long term care, medical/prescriptions and they not experience food insecurity. However none will agree to fix it.

Sleep well my readers our government is watching out for us at every level.

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