News Highlights

CM MONTHLY  REPORT FOR  NOVEMBER, 2011

CITY MANAGER’S OFFICE

• CM’s Office coordinated the Council Orientation session with City Council members.  The orientation was held to provide newly elected council members with background and information about the City departments and key services.
• City Council portions of the City website were updated with bios and pictures of the new City Council members.
•  PIO completed four weekly “CapeCast” news updates for posting on the CapePIO YouTube channel, City website and Facebook page.
•  Winter issue of On The Move was completed and delivered to residents.

POLICE DEPARTMENT

• In observance of Veterans Day, members of the department attended ceremonies at several area elementary schools.
• A Department Captain participated in the filming of a Public Service Announcement (PSA) at Wagner Middle School.  The theme of the PSA was “To Lead is To Lead” and was for a State of Florida reading campaign contest.
• Officers attended the Safety Day held at Lowe’s and spoke with participants on safety topics.
• The Cape Coral SWAT Team placed 24th out of 59 teams competing in the 29th Annual International SWAT Competition.  The team members competed against the best in the world; and even with their part-time status, they managed to stay competitive with full time and international teams.
•  Following an extensive review process from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), the Police Department was awarded Accreditation for the seventh time.  In addition, the department was selected by the Commissioners of CALEA to receive the Accreditation with Excellence Award which will attach to the agency’s CALEA Accreditation status for three years. The Accreditation with Excellence Award was created by CALEA as a symbolic incentive for agencies to employ CALEA Accreditation in a manner that sets the benchmark for public safety professionalism.

FIRE DEPARTMENT

• The Fire Department responded to 1,566 calls for service during the month of November: 60% medical, 6% accidents, 7% fire, and 27% other.
• The average response time for November was 5 minutes, 50 seconds.
• The Bureau of Life Safety conducted 5 fire investigations during the month of November: 1 structure fire, 3 vehicle fires, and 1 wildland fire.

PARKS & RECREATION DEPARTMENT

• On November 5, Four Freedoms Park held its semi-annual Indoor Baby Flea Market. A total of nine vendors participated with 107 shoppers.
• On November 2, the Yacht Club celebrated the 9th Anniversary of the Sunset Celebration on the Pier with free cake and give-a-ways. Prizes included a free limousine rental, game vouchers for the Florida Tarpons, and various gift cards. A total of 65 vendors signed up for the event and attendance is estimated at 2,000.
• On November 4, the Tony Rotino Senior Center held an open house to celebrate its 34th year of service to the community. A total of 93 participants enjoyed performances by the Cape Chorale Barber Shoppers, the Calendar Girls, and instructor, Marion Feldhaus’ tap dancing group.
• A total of 20 vendors were on hand for the semi-annual Rummage Sale at the Yacht Club Beach Pavilion on November 19 with an estimated 250 shoppers.
• The Rotino Senior Center was able to continue the tradition of providing free meals at the Center on Thanksgiving Day. This program provides a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and companionship for 120 seniors who might otherwise be alone or too frail to prepare a meal for themselves.
• Coral Oaks rounds for FY12 November (5,194) increased 7.60% or 367 rounds compared to November FY11 (4,827).
• Rotary Park’s Lab Fest on November 12 was well attended with 300 people enjoying the event.
• Tony Marzullo, Aquatic Manager at SunSplash, attended the American Heart CPR Instructor class which will make him certified to train other individuals within the City.
• The 6th Annual Coconut Festival was again a huge success. Approximately 25,000 people enjoyed the three day event which included music, carnival, fireworks, and much more.
• The Guardian Angels for Special Populations held their 5th Annual Golf Tournament on Saturday, November 5, at Palmetto Pine Country Club. The net proceeds exceeded last year by $6,000.  Over $30,000 will benefit the Special Populations program.
• The Guardian Angels for Special Populations held their 1st Pancake Breakfast fundraiser at Special Populations on Saturday, November 19. Over 170 people attended with five volunteers assisting. All the ingredients were donated by local merchants and Guardian Angel members.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

• The Habitat Conservation Plan final draft document and Incidental Take Permit application was approved by Council to be forwarded on to USFWS for their review and approval.
• Take Pride in the Cape completed the 710^th property clean-up. 
• The property registration program received $ 41,400.00 in registration fees.
• Contractor Licensing activity: 52 site checks, 6 stop work orders posted, 9 warnings, 1 citation Issued and 2 guilty findings.
• Code Scout Volunteers logged over 62 volunteer hours.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

• Economic Development Office (EDO) held the 2nd Annual Veterans Investment Zone (VIZ) business development forum on the grounds of the new Regional VA Clinic located on the corner of Diplomat Parkway and Corbet Road in Cape Coral.  More than 200 local business people and veterans attended the event which included an update on the upcoming opening of the clinic in 2012 from the clinic director, Dr. Ajay Dwahan.  Attendees also heard updates about upcoming projects within the VIZ including the Patriot Plaza and the Diplomat Commerce Park projects.  When completed these projects are expected to add more than 600,000 square feet of additional medical office, traditional office, hotels and retail space to the immediate area
• EDO staff participated in the New Council Member Briefing held hosted by the Cape Coral Police Department and the City Manager’s Office.  The EDO briefing outlined the role, functions and mission of the EDO Department and provided the new council members with a current history of the number of projects being worked within the EDO office and some preliminary details related toward upcoming events and items of importance within the local business environment.
• The EDO Director participated in an all-day Director’s Retreat which provided a foundation for beginning a strategic planning process to build a future comprehensive EDO Strategic Plan that better aligns staff objectives with the Council vision for growth.
• The EDO implemented an online Business Owner Survey intended to get a current picture of the local business climate and what needs to be done to improve the economic vitality of Cape Coral.  The survey was available until the first week in December in order to capture a significant number of responses from the business community.  The EDO Director intends to use the survey results to help establish priorities for growing the mission and to support the development of the Strategic Plan.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

• Support for Audio only meetings in Council Chambers was significantly improved. Audio is now passed directly into the Sire encoding equipment in the AV room, thereby eliminating the need to use a separate audio-only capturing laptop on the dais.
• The majority of historical “Notes” still kept on the old “H.T.E.” Land Management module was migrated to the new CRW system. We are close to eliminating the need to keep H.T.E. available for users.
• We have begun development of custom reports for the Utility Department using Crystal Reports running across the AMX Utiligy module. The first reports provide water consumption data.
• Affordable Housing Tracking: We have begun development of this custom system with DCD. Specifications have been developed and we are now finalizing the “look and feel” for user screens.
• Disaster Recovery (DR) Site at Lee County Data Center: Work proceeded in November on this shared resource site with the installation of two Windows Domain Controllers. The end goal is to enable us to obtain recovery capacity at both the County data center and the University of Florida at Gainesville.
• The GIS analyst launched a project to improve the accuracy of the stormwater layer by designating the stormwater pathways into a formal “network dataset”.
• Water, Sewer, Irrigation layers: Extra fields have been added to GIS to display projects on the system when in planning mode prior to actual build.

CITY CLERK

• The Citizen’s Action Center completed 1,469 tickets / 1,895 calls in November 2011, representing an increase of 49% for completed tickets and a decrease of 4% for calls received compared to November 2010. 
• For the month of November, the City Clerks Record Division processed 179 US Passport applications with an average of 9 per day. Total revenue generated for November was $4,475. The Records Division completed 562 public records requests in November about the same as last November (576).  Additionally, staffed prepped and scanned 12,101 permit pages along with 934 blueprints.
• Administrative staff supported 9 meetings in November 2011, and generated 87 minute pages.