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BILL BARNETT

appy New Year! I sincerely hope including former mayors, city managers, and
with all the turmoil that’s going former council members was that invitation.
Hon in our world that 2024 will be a Each of those folks who were ignored should
better one than 2023 was! have received a personal invitation from the
I started to write this article and got mayor inviting them as the City’s guest and
halfway through it and just stopped short thanking them for their years of dedicated
and went back and erased what I had written. service to the City. After all it was their hard
What follows is something that I have work that made Naples what it is today.
wrestled mightily with but in the end I felt I Well, the political scene is definitely
needed to write it so here goes. I have lived warming up in the City of Naples. Already
in the City of Naples for fifty years. I really there are false polls that are showing up on
don’t like to be repetitive but sometimes it’s Google saying Teresa Heitman and Ted
necessary. I was elected to City Council in Blankenship who are running for mayor are
1984 and ended my political career in 2020 with a total of 28 years very close in the mayoral race. What a bunch of baloney! It seems
of service with the city, 12 on Council and 16 as Mayor. Of course, that a campaign manager of one of those candidates is putting that
there was a nonconsecutive total of 8 years in between where I was nonsense out with absolutely no knowledge at this stage of the game
out of office due to term limits. However, my career spanned a total how anyone is doing. At the last City Council meeting the suggestion
of 36 years. This past year was the Centennial for the City of Naples. was made that all sitting council members and the mayor that are
I was excited to hear that the mayor was going to head a committee running for office in this upcoming election in March not put their
to plan events throughout 2023 and culminate at the end of the year campaign signs out until after the first of the year. The reason was a
with some special fun events. good one, why clutter up lawns with signs during the holidays, let's
Well, to be honest with you I had some visions in my head keep Naples pretty with decorations, not campaign signs. There was
that I would get a call when the planning started and hopefully be dead silence in the room, one would think the mayor would have
asked to participate in some of these events, maybe even chair one. jumped all over it and supported it. She mumbled a few words about
After all, if anyone has a vested interest in our City which I love I giving it some thought and that was the end of it. At the time of this
say emphatically I do! Months passed and no call came my way. I writing I know that Ted Blankenship has his signs out.
heard from various sources that the committee was meeting and the I recently received a very special call from our State Attorney
mayor was calling all the shots. By September and into the month of Amira Fox. She asked me if I would be interested in serving on the
October I realized that I was not going to get that call. Even though City of Naples Ethics Commission because one of her appointees
it meant a lot to me I wasn’t going to ask “Hey, did you forget me ?” I moved up to the State of Florida and she needed to replace him. This
actually had a good friend on that committee who never said a word was a real honor to have been asked by her. I gave it a lot of thought
to me. The many events were published and in early December a letter but respectfully declined because that commission is very restrictive
appeared in my mailbox. I opened it and it was the Invitation to the in what one can and can’t do. One example is I wouldn’t be able to
Centennial Gala to be held at Baker Park. It was a standard well done publicly support any candidate that was running for office in the
invite explaining the event, and in magnifying glass print were the City of Naples, nor would I be able to place a yard sign supporting a
words Three Hundred Dollars a Plate. I suppose the old saying of the candidate. I would also have to resign from some boards involving the
straw that broke the camel’s back came into play for me when I saw City and I just felt they were too important for me to give up.
that. It was then that all my thoughts from when the Centennial was February will be red hot with City Politics and I will devote my
first announced flooded back to me. I can’t and probably never will entire article in Life in Naples to it.
forget being ignored after devoting all those years to the City. But the Happy New Year, be safe and be happy!
glaring omission to every single elected official that was still living,
Bill Barnett, Former Mayor
I do respond to e-mails at: mayornaples@gmail.com

8 Life in Naples | January 2024