Residents near Festival Park in Cape Coral are voicing concerns over a proposed hurricane shelter. While the shelter could be beneficial following past storms like Hurricanes Ian, Helene, and Milton, many worry about the financial impact on taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Neighbors are concerned that the real storm they face is the cost of the project.<\/p>\n
“Out of my pocket as a taxpayer, I don’t think it’s fair. I think the city council has enough money to pay for it,” said Moises Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
Ralston, a nearby resident, is also feeling the pressure from rising costs.<\/p>\n
“That’s crazy with the price of things out today. Just got a letter from water med. Medic increasing my service by 15%,” said Ralston.<\/p>\n
The city council recently voted to fund a study for a community recreation center and disaster shelter, with a budget of not more than $2.5 million. However, skepticism remains among locals.<\/p>\n
“It seems like they always go over budget for everything, and they never end up doing anything,” said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
“It’s not going to happen. I mean, every time, you know, we do this, we do this, and taxes keep going up and up,” said Thomas.<\/p>\n
The proposed facility could provide much-needed resources for families in Northeast Cape Coral.<\/p>\n
However, for residents like Rodriguez, financial concerns overshadow potential benefits. Rising costs are already affecting his family.<\/p>\n
“I don’t feel perfect about it, because taxes, you know, three years ago, four or five years ago used to be, you know, $3800. Now it’s like almost $5000,” said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
The city anticipates the park will open in early 2026. The city has not yet responded to inquiries about how much of the $2.5 million will be covered by grants versus taxpayer contributions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents near Festival Park in Cape Coral are voicing concerns over a proposed hurricane shelter. While the shelter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,3837,325],"class_list":["post-55056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}