Most expensive city
Cape Coral has been officially recognized as the most expensive city to live in within Lee County, with residents experiencing a significant rise in their property taxes, primarily due to assessments related to fire services and other municipal expenditures. The number of individuals leaving Cape Coral now exceeds that of those moving in. The people who remain in Cape Coral are expressing frustration over the rising property taxes and fees, which are a result of city spending. Concerns regarding high insurance rates, water and sewer charges, and City Council budgets are also prompting individuals to go to areas such as Punta Gorda.
Many residents of Cape Coral feel that the City Council’s financial management is excessive, further contributing to their tax burden. This financial strain is leading numerous homeowners to see themselves as “renters” of their own properties due to the weight of fees and taxes. What many may not recognize about Cape Coral is its notably low commercial tax base. In most municipalities, commercial tax bases generally represent over 40%, whereas in Cape Coral, it currently stands at approximately 15%. Residents feel the city prioritizes new development over current residents’ needs, leading to overdevelopment This disparity has resulted in calls for the City Council and mayor to reevaluate their growth strategies, especially concerning the development of new apartment complexes. In the absence of a strong commercial tax base, residential taxes are likely to continue increasing at a faster rate than in most regions. Cape Coral should have exercised caution in managing growth; instead, it has actively encouraged it. With growth comes the need for the expansion of utilities, government services, roads, public safety, and schools. Consequently, residents will continue to shoulder much of the financial responsibility through taxation. The continuing rise in insurance and utility expenses, coupled with heavy traffic and congestion, a dwindling water supply and renovations like Jaycee Park and Yacht Club running way over budget along with numerous ordinances, has led to residents’ complaints regarding stringent regulations on property use and the recent introduction of yard signs for violations, resulting in frustration over shaming and notification processes. Many individuals find the volume of these issues hard to deal with.
Lou Walker, Cape Coral
Lifesaving care
My wife and I are new to Florida, spending time the last three years in Pennsylvania and Florida. All medical services were provided in Pennsylvania by doctors we were seeing for over 30 years. My wife had a medical situation that brought her to Collier Urgent Care at Founders Square. She was diagnosed by Michael Turner, Certified Physician Assistant, and she was told to go to the emergency room at NCH on Immokalee because it was attached to the hospital, as she may need to be admitted.
Upon arrival at the emergency room, she was seen by Dr Panozzo. He immediately identified the situation and ordered tests, resulting in her being sent to NCH Baker for vascular surgery. He was excellent, as were the ER nurses and technicians treating her. Unfortunately I don’t have their names.
Surgery was performed the next day by Dr. Santiago Chahwan. After the surgery he came to see me and explained what happened, it was much more serious than expected. He took care of the problem. He had an excellent bedside manner. The hospitalist was Dr. Francesco Hernandez. He was also excellent, so were all the nurses, unfortunately I do not have their names.
Bottom line, my wife’s life was saved. I do not want to get into the specific medical issue, but if we did not go to the Urgent Care, something probably would have happened resulting in a stroke or death. If Michael Turner didn’t see the problem and recommend NCH, if Dr. Panozzo did not see the severity and order the tests and recommend surgery, if Dr. Chahwan did not do an excellent job in identifying the severity of the problem and fixed it, my wife could have died.
A heartfelt thanks to Collier Urgent Care, the ER at NCH and NCH Baker.
Charles J. and Mary R. Morgan, Naples
Slow down!
Happy New Year to all my fellow Naples residents and welcome back to our snowbirds. I have just one little favor to ask in 2026, for all of you who own and drive your high performance sport cars and SUVs, first off congratulations on being able to afford such fine driving machines. However please kindly refrain from thinking you’re driving on the autobahn or a road course in our city. We know you can go fast but 20-35 mph over the limit on 41 or airport highway doesn’t impress anyone but yourself, and zipping through red lights, are you really in that much of a hurry? Slow down and enjoy life, make it safe for all of us.
Bill Flaishans, Naples
Stop Trump’s unbridled power
Maduro was a brutish dictator who refused to leave office when he lost a democratic election. If Trump was interested in restoring democracy and the rule of law, he would have called for the democratically elected government to come back. But instead, Trump not only made clear that neither restoring democracy nor stopping drug trafficking was his real goal: instead it is seizing Venezuela’s oil. But might does not make right.
Under Trump, now the United States is the most dangerous threat to democracy and the rule of law in the world. He is even threatening to take over our NATO ally, Greenland. We don’t need Greenland for our national security. We need Republicans in Congress and Supreme Court justices to stop Trump’s unbridled power to destroy not only our country but the world order and stand up for the principles of freedom, democracy, and rule of law that this great nation was founded on before it is too late.
Jean Chandler, Fort Myers
Can’t be our new normal
First, it’s a fact our Special Forces are an elite military force, in my opinion the finest on our planet.
Next fact, we have a president who has no checks nor controls on his executive actions. Knowing this fact and having no respect for Constitutional checks and balances, he is operating in a vacuum pursuing his own personal agenda with total loyalty and support from his sycophant enablers.
Another fact, Maduro is a bad guy who stole elections and has a rap sheet of grievances, but he’s the Venezuelan’s bad guy and theirs to deal with. Trump’s initial justification was he is a narco terrorist, but at same time pardons the former Honduras president who was convicted of moving 400 tons of cocaine into our country. This is a contradiction and hypocrisy to cover an oil grab at the expense of respect for the people of a sovereign nation not at war with us.
Now we have a president emboldened by his unchecked behavior who rules from a mindset of might is right. He’s making threatening comments about Cuba, Greenland etc. Guess this validates Putin’s Ukraine invasion and is a strong signal to China to finally invade Taiwan.
We still are a democracy and must hold our Congress to be accountable by exercising their constitutional responsibilities checking the Executive Branch’s power.
This year’s midterm elections are extremely important to use our votes as a form of checks and balances. This can’t ever become our new normal.
James Keough, Cape Coral
China and Taiwan
Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, Poland, France and Russia, Putin invaded Ukraine, and now Trump has invaded Venezuela. Each demagogue has justified his actions as being in their country’s national interest.
China makes the same claim with respect to its right to invade Taiwan, and now Trump has given it license to do so. When that happens, China will gain control of the world’s computer chip production (especially advanced AI chips). On what grounds will the U.S. then claim that this invasion is immoral and a violation of international law? The loss of Taiwan will definitely be a threat to the economic stability and security of our country, as China might deny us the chips we need. Will we go to war with China? Ask Trump!
Ed OKeefe, Bonita Springs
Needs to be consensus
A man who has proven himself to be the most reasonable and logical senator, John Fetterman, attested to the fact the Biden administration placed a 25-million-dollar bounty on Maduro’s head and not one Democrat objected when the proposal was presented. Trump took action and captured him in Venezuela and moved him to New York to stand trial. He did not kill Maduro although he probably could have and the Democrats like Chris Murphy, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries have all raged against Trump. I guess this proves the old adage about the shoe being on the other foot. The Democrats’ liberal wing needs to realize it cannot fly alone. There needs to be consensus by both parties so that America can move upward and its people thrive.
Michael Zubrow, Naples
It’s the oil
The MAGA king said the words “oil” fourteen times in justifying the successful U.S. military operation that captured U.S. indicted Venezuelan president Madura. Mr. Trump said the word “democracy” zero times. In my lifetime this country has only fought wars and engaged in conflicts to protect against an imminent threat to our national security or to aid in the spread of or to secure democracy around the globe where U.S national security was at stake. With Mr. Trump we now put our nation’s greatest treasures at risk to make Mr. Trump and his club of oligarchical pals even richer, with the rest of us scrapping up any crumbs should they choose to throw any our way. Meanwhile, as per usual, Mr. Trump’s neutered Cabinet and Republican majority in both houses of Congress, quivering in their boots, continue to shill for every nonsensical, incoherent, and idiotic pronouncement from the mouth of the stable genius. God help us.
Thomas Minor, Bonita Springs
No redeeming social value
Here we are at the beginning of another year having just completed one of the worst years in American history thanks to the atrocious leader and the impotent Congress and Supreme Court. From the moment when Trump swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States to the two or three hours later when he signed several executive orders that defied the Constitution, I knew that he was going to destroy our country and our way of life. I had predicted that if he took the oath of office that he was telling the first great lie of his second term. I can only hope that enough public angst has been generated to motivate the Congress to stop the wreckage before it’s irreparable. The definition of Donald Trump is the same as the definition of pornography; he has no redeeming social value and should be removed. That act cannot happen soon enough!
Bette Dion, Naples
Impeachment the answer
What the H==l is Trump thinking about? This country has survived 250 years and now he says, “we need Greenland”!
Greenland is part of the NATO countries and now he wants to take Greenland away from Denmark!
What’s next Ireland? Iceland? Where are our allies in this whole mess? Next, he will be after Canada? Where are the Philippines in his convoluted way of thinking?
The only answer for Trump is impeachment. The sooner the better!
Franklin C. Warner, Fort Myers
What’s next? Anybody’s guess
Venezuelans are celebrating the arrest of Nicolas Maduro on charges of cocaine and weapons smuggling. He’s an evil autocrat whose exit from the world stage is welcome. What happens next is anybody’s guess. Maduro’s VP will be acting president, acting as we tell her to act. Trump says the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for the near future. The bully will talk tough and threaten everyone. Oddly, the opposition party, which handily won the last election, is being ignored. The will of the people and international law are not Trump’s priorities. Note the hypocrisy of Trump’s pardoning the convicted drug trafficking ex-president of Honduras. Trump’s in Venezuela for the oil.
In 2024 Maduro ran for a third term, manipulated the vote count, and stole the election. Trump had tried and failed to do the same thing in 2020. For instance, he called the Secretary of State of Georgia and tried to get him to flip the vote. Trump was complicit in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, where people died. Senate leader Mitch McConnell said that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the events of the day, and that his actions were “impeachable.” Trump was guilty but got away with it because the spineless Republicans in the Senate, led by McConnell, voted not to convict him.The big difference between the two self-indulgent dictators is that Maduro’s in jail and Trump has the immense power of the U.S. behind him. Now he’ll threaten Colombia, Mexico, Greenland, Iran, Cuba, and whoever else might get under his easily bruised skin.
Kevin McNally, Bonita Springs
Axis of Authoritarianism
The Trump administration’s invasion of Venezuela and removal of its president negates any even belated attempt to hold Vladimir Putin to task for his militarism towards Ukraine, effort to discourage the Chinese leadership from proceeding with its threatened plan to try to take over Taiwan, and, for that matter, deter other aggressive international border intrusions.
While the captured Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro is no saint, quite the contrary, the blunderbuss used to oust him is a blunder.
It’s reminiscent of the way this country, spearheaded by operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the same tools as used in Venezuela, undertook covert activities under Republican administrations to overthrow duly elected anti-establishment government leaders in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950’s, Chile in the 1970’s, and perhaps untold others still buried in the agency’s records.
President Trump’s plan for United States “to run” Venezuela creates a framework for others like Russia’s Putin and the Chinese regime to engage in similar bellicosity, creating an Axis of Authoritarianism with this country dominant in the Western Hemisphere, Russia casting its shadow over portions of Europe and Asia, and the Chinese operating with free rein in the Pacific rim.
Going forward, the president’s self-proclaimed “Donroe Doctrine” also may set a precedent for this country to deploy similar maneuvers to grab other territories that the president longs to possess, especially for their natural resources, like Greenland and Canada, eh?
Marshall H. Tanick, Naples
Great-power politics
America appears to be drifting away from the rules-based international order it helped build after World War II — an order grounded in law, national sovereignty, and restraint — and toward a rougher world where power decides outcomes. By treating strength and wealth as permission to pressure weaker nations, the U.S. is adopting a great-power mindset long championed by Vladimir Putin, made unmistakably clear in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The concern isn’t one specific military action or threat; it’s the pattern taking shape. History shows how this works. In the late 1930s, each move was sold as limited and necessary. Each success was hailed as proof of toughness. Critics were brushed aside as weak or disloyal. And each step that “didn’t become a war” only lowered resistance to the next one. The danger wasn’t mass enthusiasm — it was gradual acceptance. The difference today is that Americans still possess safeguards Germany lacked, if we choose to use them. We have an independent United States Congress with the constitutional duty to authorize war, courts capable of judging legality, and congressional control over spending — the most effective brake on open-ended military commitments. Even in the 1930s, Germany’s military leaders privately doubted reckless expansion, but private concern without public backing became silence. A professional military can act with restraint only when civilians insist on it. If Americans want strength without recklessness, now is the moment to demand lawful process, congressional authorization, and firm limits — before temporary actions become permanent commitments.
Charles McClinton, Cape Coral
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Cape Coral the most expensive city in Lee County | Opinion letters
Reporting by Letter writers / Fort Myers News-Press
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