Open Letter to the City Council

By Byron Erickson

A civility resolution for Marco Island has been proposed by Council Chair DiSciullo. A resolution designed to henceforth end incivility, encourage only free and open civil discourse and respect for the opinions of others and the restoration of public decorum. Although I believe her motives are well intentioned, they are not grounded in good will and may cause more harm to our community than good.

The genesis of this resolution comes from a letter Celebrate Marco sent to the City Council. Celebrate Marco was established to ensure that the voice of real estate, chamber of commerce and cooperate interests be heard on Marco Island. Celebrate Marco hides behind good works to promote a political agenda which is to counter grass root s organizations that are attempting to promote the will of our residents. The board of Celebrate Marco includes two former Council members responsible for many of the root causes of our city disharmony and divisiveness.

Councilwoman DiSciullo has stated in support of her resolution that sometimes all you need is a realization of what's going on. I suggest that M s. DiSciullo does not realize what Celebrate Marco is really up to. I suggest the real motive behind Celebrate Marco's promotion of this initiative is to obtain a City sponsored platform to further promote its political agenda. The so called unity petit ion would be the first realization of their goal. CM board member John Arceri admits to this while promoting the unity petition as a document intended to overlap with the second round of petitions to recall Councilman Minozzi, Trotter and Tucker. This is clearly an effort to campaign on the behalf of targeted officials. This city's promotion and participation in that effort would be in violation of election laws.

I also suggest that it would be more useful for the Council to adopt a resolution to get to the root causes of the incivility, acrimonious tone and controversial issues currently plaguing our City. This could be accomplished with a simple workshop in which Council members could examine the origins of the problems confronting our city and commit to positively work to heal our island by making real attempts to correct those causes.

If the Chairwoman earnestly seeks ideas to make good resolutions designed to improve acrimony, she should ask for citizen input and not be fooled into doing the bidding of clever politicians like John Arceri and Mr. Lazarus. Ms. DiSciullo should beware of any proposal from Celebrate Marco; they have members that have encouraged the shooting of those who oppose them.

Proposing a resolution whose genesis comes from controversial political action committee like Celebrate Marco is clearly choosing sides and can only lead to more acrimony. City Council's approval of such a resolution would be a disservice to our City and our Community.