CAPE CORAL, Fla. — Cape Coral residents will now have to wait longer if they want to speak during city council meetings.
Wednesday night, the Cape Coral City Council voted to move citizen comments towards the end of meetings, with the idea that it will give people more time come and voice their opinion.
But residents like Louis Navarra fear the later time will discourage people from speaking at all.
“It’s going to end it,” he said. “They’ve taken away the AV, they’ve made it easier to kick out people. These people are fascists.”
Cape Coral residents tell Fox 4 community corespondent Stephen Pimpo they feel like the city wants to take away their voice:
Citizen comments often turn heated during Cape Coral City Council meetings. Now they will take place just before council member reports near the end of the night.
Navarra was eventually was led out of Wednesday’s meeting after getting into an argument with Council member Rachel Kaduk.
“We had words today, earlier today when you screamed at me and told me that I’m pregnant and I should resign because I’m pregnant,” Council member Kaduk told Navarra.
But he said she misrepresented his comment.
“I said, ‘If you don’t want to do the job and you’re too busy and you told me you’re pregnant, maybe you need to resign.’” Navarra said.
Council member Kaduk said this measure is not meant to silence residents.
“There’s three people that have a problem with this,” she said. “We will still hear you, you have a whole week to get to us before we vote on it and a lot of these, you have multiple weeks to get to us.”
The city council will also now require the public to fill out cards with information on their comments.
“It’s going to be a game-changer in my opinion for the community because what’ll happen is, staff will have the information,” said Mayor John Gunter.
Cape Coral resident Julia Ettari isn’t buying it.
“It’s very clear that this city does not want to hear from its citizens,” Ettari said. “It’s absolutely appalling and I don’t think it’s right.”
