/Fort Myers Beach News
Bonita Springs church to be site of Nov. 5 conflict resolution meeting
Lee County School District Supt. Dr. Denise Carlin
School District of Lee County Supt. Dr. Denise Carlin will not be setting foot onto Fort Myers Beach to help broker a mediation meeting the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted to initiate this month in order to force the school district to reopen the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School.
Instead, Carlin will attend a mediation session with the Town Council at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Bonita Springs on Nov. 5, after opposing the council’s selection of the Fort Myers Beach Town Hall as the setting for the mediation.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council and Town Manager Will McKannay acquiesced to the school district administration’s insistence on an alternative location after private negotiations involving McKannay, the town’s attorneys and the school district. McKannay consulted with Town of Fort Myers Beach Council members who agreed to the alternative location requested by the school district one week after insisting that the location remain at the Town Hall despite objections from school district administrators.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted earlier this month to initiate the mediation and set the location for the public meeting to be held at the Fort Myers Beach Town Hall.
The agreement to change the venue followed a council meeting last week in which councilmembers made statements about how adamant they were that the meeting should be held at the Town Hall after being told by the town’s attorneys that the school district’s administrators were balking at attending the Town of Fort Myers Beach Town Hall.
School district administrators had communicated to the town’s attorneys that they would not pay their share of the cost of a mediator unless the mediation was held at another site.
McKannay said the setting of the church was agreed upon after the school district insisted on an alternative site or virtual site. He said he engaged in discussions with Fort Myers Beach councilmembers to gain consensus on the location, which he said is an appropriate location for the mediation meeting.
“What happened was behind the scenes the Lee County School District refused to come to Fort Myers Beach,” Vice Mayor Jim Atterholt said. “They asked for a neutral location.”
Atterholt said McKannay sought out the church as an alternative site and a compromise was reached with the school district.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted Oct. 6 by resolution to initiate the mediation proceedings, calling for the Nov. 5 meeting at the Town Hall. The conflict resolution process is stipulated through an interlocal agreement between the Town of Fort Myers Beach and the school district that governed the reopening of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School after Hurricane Ian.
One day after the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted to initiate the mediation proceedings, the School District of Lee County School Board agreed to send school board member Bill Ribble to the Town of Fort Myers Beach Town Hall as its representative for the mediation session to accompany Carlin and members of her administration. Ribble’s district includes Fort Myers Beach.
Fort Myers Beach Elementary School has remained shuttered since Hurricane Milton in 2024 despite significantly less damage to the school than it incurred from Hurricane Ian two years earlier. Photo by Nathan Mayberg
For weeks after, Carlin and school district representatives were still arguing with the town’s attorneys and manager for the mediation session to be in another location. According to Fort Myers Beach Attorney Nancy Stuparich and McKannay, the school district was refusing to pay half of the cost for a mediator unless the meeting was held elsewhere.
The Nov. 5 meeting will be open to the public and will be headed by mediator Derek Rooney, an attorney with the law firm Gray Robinson. Both the school district and town agreed for Rooney to mediate the meeting. Robinson has served as the attorney for Bonita Springs and formerly served as an attorney for the Town of Fort Myers Beach and as a mediator in the past for Fort Myers Beach over a dispute with a vendor.
Fort Myers Beach parent Monica Schmucker, who served on an ad-hoc committee that met with school district administrators for months to work on reopening the elementary school after Hurricane Milton, said by state statute the school district does not get to decide the venue for the mediation. The interlocal agreement between the town and school district refers to the state statute for mediating an disputes.
Under Florida statute for governing governmental disputes, the conflict resolution process gives the right of picking a location for mediation to the government entity which initiates the process, Schmucker said.
Monica Schmucker. File photo
“It’s a slap in the face to our officials who have been trying really hard to work with them,” Schmucker said. “They treat the agreement with the town as if it is non-existent to them.”
Florida State Statute 164 for resolving governmental disputes requires that “the governmental entity first initiating the conflict resolution process shall have the responsibility to schedule the joint public meeting and arrange a location.”
While attorneys for the Town of Fort Myers Beach told the Town Council on Monday that the School District of Lee County was looking to only cover the cost of the upcoming mediation between the two entities if the hearing was held at the school district’s offices, school district spokesman Rob Spicker said last week the district was prepared to cover half the cost of the mediation and said administration officials are prepared to attend the Nov. 5. mediation hearing.
Asked directly whether the superintendent would attend the mediation at the Town of Fort Myers Beach Town Hall or was opposed to attending the mediation at the Town of Fort Myers Beach Town Hall, Spicker said “We have offered to pay half the cost. Our October 10 letter to the Town indicated the Superintendent would attend.”
Spicker said Monday “our position has not changed” and that the superintendent had been seeking a “mutually agreed neutral location.”
Atterholt called Carlin’s decision to seek out the “neutral” site “disappointing.”
“When they use the term neutral location that infers that somehow their own constituents on Fort Myers Beach are somehow hostile in nature which to me seems odd that you would consider your own constituents that way,” Atterholt said.
“We felt that a meeting off island was better than no meeting at all,” he said. “Our goal is to move something forward with the Beach School.”
Atterholt said that Carlin had communicated to McKannay that she would not attend a meeting at the Town of Fort Myers Beach Town Hall. She would only agree to a location off the island or to a virtual meeting.
McKannay said last week the school district had communicated they will cover mediation costs if the hearing was held at a different venue. McKannay said the town wouldn’t agree to that.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach has not released a cost estimate for the use of Rooney’s services.
The mediation hearing will focus on the status of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, which the town has been fighting to reopen since voting in May to have its attorney and Manager meet with school district administration officials and communicate the town’s expectation that the school will be reopened in accordance with the interlocal agreement between the town and school district.
The agreement requires that the school remain open through at least 2027 though the district has not reopened the school since Hurricane Milton flooded the school last year.
Town of Fort Myers Beach Attorney Stuparich said some of the outstanding issues about how the mediation will work include whether there would be public statements allowed.
Atterholt said that at a minimum, Fort Myers Beach Elementary School parents who have been involved in the ad-hoc advisory committee and involved with past discussions involving school district administrators regarding the reopening of the elementary school, should be able to make statements at the mediation hearing.
“I would like to see the superintendent be able to go first because I can sit here today and honestly say publicly that I really don’t know what her position is about the Fort Myers Beach school. Clearly, the lack of activity has indicated a less than favorable response as far as we are concerned,” Atterholt said.
“I have not heard the newly-elected superintendent definitively opine on what her position is on behalf of the administration,” he said.
Fort Myers Beach Vice Mayor Jim Atterholt. File photo
“I have yet to hear the superintendent articulate what her vision and plan is for the Fort Myers Beach school. For her to start off, it might answer a lot of our questions, may solve problems,” Atterholt said. “I just think that would be helpful for everyone.”
Atterholt said he believes the mediation process will be difficult to navigate without knowing Carlin’s position.
“It’s difficult to mediate a process where we really don’t know what the foundational principles are for one of the parties who is involved in mediation. We know what our position is. We have been very clear on that,” Atterholt said.
One day after the Town Council’s vote to initiate mediation, the school board voted to submit a Castaldi report to the state requesting permission to raze the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School campus. The school is a historic building that is listed under the protection of the National Register of Historic Places.
Fort Myers Beach Councilmember John King said “the school district wanted a neutral location for the meeting, especially in lieu of what was described as a hostile environment at a Cape Coral meeting. The meeting is too important to haggle over location.”
Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers did not return messages seeking comment.
The mediation hearing will be held at 1 p.m. at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church on 28290 Beaumont Road in Bonita Springs. The meeting will be a public meeting though it isn’t clear if there will be additional time allowed for the general public to make comments.