(June 15, 2015) -- Tonight (June 16), the City Council will discuss how to prioritize shoreline and beach area projects that current and past City Councils approved in the belief they'd be funded by the city's Tidelands fund, except that now there are more Council approved projects than available Tidelands funds to pay for them (due in part to drop in price of oil.)

A little less than a year ago, LBREPORT.com offered a constructive way to free up millions of Tidelands dollars that could start and finish the unfunded Belmont Plaza Pool. For the record, we remain unpersuaded that a new Pool should be rebuilt where the old one was, BUT if the Council remains committed to that location, we believe it should at least consider the following option.

We republish below what we suggested a year ago (when 3rd dist. Councilman DeLong was preparing to exit, Councilwoman-elect Price was preparing to enter, and 2nd dist. incumbent Lowenthal had been in office for eight years:

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[LBREPORT.com text, June 21, 2014]...[I]n our opinion, a world class [Belmont Plaza] pool IS affordable within the City's Tidelands fund if the City Council revisits a more economical, management-offered option that is actually quite generous in using public money to pay for sea walls mainly benefiting some very wealthy property owners on Naples Island.

Photo source: City of LB

From LBREPORT.com's Amnesia File: On June 15, 2010, the City Council voted 8-0 (Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal absent for entire meeting) to approve spending $9.5 million from the city's Tidelands Operating Fund to repair only a portion of the Naples seawalls, with remaining portions to be funded from somewhere at an avoidably high cost.

Mike Conway (then-Public Works Director, since promoted to management's point person for what we consider a horribly misguided Civic Center rebuild) offered the Council two seawall repair options: a costly "long term" solution ($9.5 million per each portion of seawall repairs, that he estimated would last 70 years, something impossible to know for most people alive now) or a more economical "short term" solution ($2.2 million per portion, estimated to last 10-15 years.) Councilman Gary DeLong moved to support the more costly $9.5 million "long term solution," arguing that the lower cost option was a poor investment (throwing good money after bad.)

We understand Councilman DeLong's reasoning, but we don't share his conclusion. One doesn't put a 70 year roof on one's house, leaving the family unable to afford other pressing items...especially when a 15 year roof will work just fine. We believe the more economical option for the seawall repairs deserves a second look. Management said it was feasible and the tens of millions of dollars in Tidelands money saved could help fund a world class Belmont Plaza pool rebuild (with its costs more closely scrutinized.)

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If some Naples property owners balk at a more economical and feasible seawall project, they should be mindful that some LB taxpayers have long believed that property owners next to or near the seawalls should bear at least some of the cost of repairing infrastructure largely benefiting their properties via a benefit assessment district or the like.

LBREPORT.com believes the incoming City Council should revisit its costly 2010 decision as a priority matter, without dilatoriness and without ducking fiscal facts. We believe every dime in public money spent for a Tidelands funded pool rebuild and the seawalls should be closely scrutinized, not credulously accepted...

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[To view city management's agendized/recommended Tidelands capital projects for the next five years, click here.]

And one final note: although the 2nd and 3rd Council districts are directly affected by how Tidelands funds are prioritized, that decision isn't made exclusively by those districts' Councilmembers; the decision on how to prioritize projects in the shoreline -- a citywide asset -- is made by a Council majority.

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