provided to The Santiva Chronicle
Following the Committee of the Islands’ annual meeting, the board met and chose new officers: William Millar, president; Miriam Pepper, vice president; Jeff Blackman, secretary; and Carl (Bud) Reinhold, treasurer.
Opening the March 15 annual meeting in his last official act as president, Larry Schopp recapped the group’s mission: “COTI was founded almost 50 years ago by some of the same people who fought to make Sanibel a self-governing city. The City was founded for one purpose – to control development on Sanibel; and COTI was formed to make sure that goal was accomplished. Our primary mission then and now is to preserve the small-town character of our barrier island community, protect the environment, and ensure the continuity of good local government.”
He explained, “We do that in two ways: With a goal of influencing governmental outcomes, we monitor the activities of our elected representatives and their appointees for adherence to the Sanibel Plan and Vision Statement. When we see something, we say something. Our board members attend and participate in city council and planning commission meetings and meet with the city manager, staff, and council members to propose, oppose, or improve legislation that has a bearing on our mission.
“We are also a non-partisan political committee. With our mission statement as a guide, we support and oppose ballot issues and candidates for local public office. Over the years we’ve chosen well – not just because we’ve supported winners, but also because the winners we endorsed shared our values.
“Over the past year, the number-one issue facing Sanibel has been recovering from the effects of Hurricane Ian. COTI’s focus has been on assuring that we do not sacrifice our core values in that process for the sake of expediency. We have supported the City’s goal of eliminating unnecessary roadblocks to recovery by streamlining the permit-approval process and eliminating red tape that served no useful purpose. When it appeared errors were being made, we spoke up and were heard.
“Recovery is now well under way on Sanibel, and key limitations on development remain intact. It’s true that replacement buildings will be taller, but that’s because FEMA base flood elevations have changed over time. On Sanibel, at least there will not be additional stories; three is still the limit. There will be no increase in residential density, developed area, or impermeable coverage. As we all know, Captiva has not fared as well.
“In a new role, COTI has joined with other, like-minded organizations in coalitions to pursue common objectives. COTI was a founding member of San-Cap Resilience, which was formed to promote adaptation and mitigation efforts on Sanibel and Captiva in the wake of hurricane Ian. We are also a member of Protect Captiva, an ad-hoc coalition that is resisting the expansion of South Seas Island Resort under the guise of building back resiliently.
“Now that Covid 19 and the immediate effects of Hurricane Ian are behind us, we have begun engaging with our members in person again. We’ve held two COTI Conversations this year. One featured noted local architect Joyce Owens, who spoke about rebuilding resiliently without sacrificing aesthetics. The other featured COTI board member and transportation expert Bill Millar. He focused on finding ways to make it easier to move around on these islands without just increasing road capacity. We recently sent the city council recommendations that came out of that meeting.
“As the only locally focused watchdog organization on Sanibel, COTI plays an important role in protecting the values that motivated the City’s founders 50 years ago. That’s an ongoing process, so I hope people continue to support our work well into the future. If you are interested in becoming involved in COTI’s work, please think about becoming a member and joining one of our standing committees. Information about COTI and the work of its committees is available at http://www.COTI.org.”
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