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August 23, 2026 · The Sunday Brief No. 014 · Cape Coral, FL
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FREE EDITION
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What's being built · What it means
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Failed
The proposal to replace the Hearing Examiner with a Special Magistrate, brought by City Management, did not survive its public hearing. The motion to approve failed, and the Hearing Examiner stays.
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$5.00
The new surcharge on every building permit, approved to fund unlicensed contractor enforcement and a new investigator position. The enabling ordinance was brought forward by Mayor Gunter.
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3rd
Where Mayor Gunter finished in the mayoral primary, at 14.93 percent. He will not appear on the November ballot. Two newcomers advance to decide the seat.
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City Council · August 19 Regular Meeting · On the Record
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Council rejected the plan to replace the Hearing Examiner. Two weeks ago we told you it was coming. It did not pass.
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In our last issue we flagged Ordinance 20-26 as the item to watch on the August 19 agenda: a City Management proposal to eliminate the city's Hearing Examiner and stand up a Special Magistrate in its place, rewriting large portions of the Land Development Code that govern how quasi-judicial development cases, variances, and floodplain appeals are decided. On Wednesday, the motion to approve that ordinance failed. The Hearing Examiner remains the city's quasi-judicial decision maker, and the code sections the ordinance would have rewritten stay as they are.
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What the ordinance would have changed
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The Hearing Examiner is the office that hears many of the land use cases that never reach the Council dais. Under the city's own description of the role, the Hearing Examiner is the final decision maker on appeals of administrative decisions, special exceptions, dock and marine improvement deviations, variances, landscape deviations, and certain design standard deviations, and is the recommending body on rezonings and plat vacations. Ordinance 20-26 would have folded those quasi-judicial duties into a Special Magistrate, amending the development approval process, the public hearing procedures, the rules on conditions of approval, and the floodplain variance and appeal provisions. It was brought forward by City Management, not by an individual Council member.
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There is a detail here worth sitting with. The city already uses a Special Magistrate on the code compliance side, presiding over code enforcement hearings under state law. This ordinance was about the other track, the land use and development track, where the Hearing Examiner sits. So the practical question in front of Council was whether to consolidate two different adjudication roles under one magistrate model. On the same agenda, three rezonings still carried a line reading "Hearing Examiner Recommendation: Approval," a reminder that the office the ordinance proposed to eliminate was actively doing its job that very night.
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Mayor Gunter was excused from the August 19 meeting. Mayor Pro Tem Bill Steinke ran it in his place, with Council Members Donnell, Kaduk, Kilraine, Lastra, Lehmann, and Long present. That arrangement is not new. Steinke has served as Mayor Pro Tem since the Council's organizational actions last November, and Gunter separately manages the day to day operations of the Council Office. What is new is the timing. This was the first Regular Meeting after a primary in which voters approved a charter amendment formalizing the Mayor Pro Tem role, and in which the sitting Mayor did not advance. The gavel was in the Pro Tem's hand on a night the city rejected a City Management proposal. We note the sequence and leave the reading to you.
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Where this stands
The Final Action Summary records the result as a failed motion to approve. It does not record a roll call breakdown for this item, and we are not going to invent the reasons individual members voted the way they did. What we can report is the outcome: the Hearing Examiner structure survives, and any future move to a Special Magistrate for land use cases would have to come back as a new ordinance. If City Management brings it back, you will read it here first.
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Sources: City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Final Action Summary, August 19, 2026, for the motion result and the presiding officer; City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Agenda Full Package, August 19, 2026, for the text and scope of Ordinance 20-26 and the Hearing Examiner recommendations on the rezonings; City of Cape Coral Boards and Committees and Code Compliance Hearings pages for the roles of the Hearing Examiner and the code compliance Special Magistrate; Cape Coral Digest Issue No. 013, August 16, 2026.
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City Council · August 19 Regular Meeting · Approved
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A five dollar surcharge on every building permit now funds a crackdown on unlicensed contractors.
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While the Special Magistrate proposal failed, a separate enforcement package moved the other way and passed in full. It arrived in three interlocking pieces. Ordinance 49-26, brought forward by Mayor Gunter, rewrites Chapter 6 of the city code covering unlicensed contractors, touching the intent, applicability, definitions, grounds for disciplinary action, enforcement procedure, notice, liens, appeals, and criminal penalties. Resolution 216-26 creates a new full time Licensing Investigator position inside the Development Services Department, at a salary and benefits figure of $83,882.50. Resolution 217-26 pays for it by establishing a $5.00 surcharge on every building permit issued in the city, flowing into a dedicated Unlicensed Contractor Fund.
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The structure is worth understanding because it is self funding by design. The city is not drawing the investigator's salary from the general fund. It is asking every permit holder, meaning every homeowner and every licensed contractor who pulls a permit, to add five dollars that goes specifically toward catching the people who never pull permits at all. For a resident doing a legitimate project, it is a small line item. For the city, it is a way to grow enforcement without a general tax argument. Whether five dollars per permit generates enough volume to sustain a full position over time is a question the numbers will answer in the FY 2027 cycle, and one we will keep an eye on.
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Sources: City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Final Action Summary, August 19, 2026, for the approvals of Ordinance 49-26 and Resolutions 216-26 and 217-26 and the associated dollar figures; City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Agenda Full Package, August 19, 2026, for the text and scope of the Chapter 6 amendments and the surcharge structure.
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Land Use · August 19 Regular Meeting · Approved
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The city rezoned its own land toward parks, and stepped a Seven Islands parcel back to single family.
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Council approved a cluster of land use changes in which the city was its own applicant. Two moved parcels toward Parks and Recreation. Ordinance 37-26 changed the future land use on 23.14 acres at 2327 Trafalgar Parkway to Parks and Recreation, and its companion rezoning, Ordinance 40-26, put that land and an adjoining Chandler Grove Drive parcel into a Commercial zone. Ordinance 36-26 moved 2.54 acres on Tropicana Parkway, west of Old Burnt Store Road, to Parks and Recreation. A third pair, Ordinance 33-26 and Ordinance 41-26, shifted 13.38 acres at 2501 SE 17th toward Public Facilities and Institutional zoning.
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The one to flag for regular readers is Ordinance 42-26. It rezoned the 2.54 acre Tropicana Parkway parcel, described in the record as Block 6408, Tract I of Cape Coral Unit 76, out of Mixed-Use Seven Islands and into Single-Family Residential. Seven Islands is a name that carries weight in this city, and a downzoning from a mixed use designation to single family is the kind of change worth watching. We want to be careful about what the record actually says. The agenda and the Final Action Summary document the zoning action itself, from Mixed-Use Seven Islands to Single-Family Residential, with both Planning staff and the Hearing Examiner recommending approval. They do not spell out a broader intent for the larger Seven Islands vision. We are reporting the parcel action as approved, and not drawing a conclusion about the project as a whole that the documents do not support.
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Sources: City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Final Action Summary, August 19, 2026, for the approvals and the property descriptions; City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Agenda Full Package, August 19, 2026, for the acreages, land use categories, and staff and Hearing Examiner recommendations.
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City Property · August 19 Regular Meeting · Added and Approved
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Ten surplus parcels, and two of them headed to a builders charity.
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An item added to the agenda at the meeting itself carried a small piece of good news. Council declared a set of ten city owned parcels, identified during the August 12 Committee of the Whole discussion, as surplus property, and authorized the City Manager to dispose of them under Section 2-155 of the city code. As part of the same action, Council directed administration to pick two of those parcels to donate to Lee BIA Builders Care, the charitable arm of the local building industry association that repairs and rebuilds homes for residents in need. The two chosen parcels are set to come back for formal Introduction on September 2. It is a modest transaction in dollar terms, but it is a clean example of the city turning land it does not need into something a neighbor can use.
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Sources: City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Final Action Summary, August 19, 2026, for the surplus declaration, the disposal authorization under Section 2-155, and the direction to identify two parcels for donation returning for Introduction on September 2.
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Election 2026 · August 18 Primary · Results
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A sitting mayor did not make the ballot. Most of the dais is now in play.
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The August 18 primary reshaped the field for November. In the six way mayoral race, Rick Erickson led with 32.06 percent and Lisa Cohen-Adkinson took second with 24.48 percent. The two advance to the November 3 general election. Mayor John Gunter finished third at 14.93 percent and will not appear on the ballot. These are the certified figures from the Lee County Supervisor of Elections summary, which recorded countywide turnout of 29.74 percent, called the best primary turnout since 2020.
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Two open Council seats also narrowed. In District 1, where Bill Steinke did not seek re-election, Tom Shadrach led with 35.36 percent and Dave Newton followed at 29.64 percent. In District 6, where Keith Long did not seek re-election, Liza King took 28.67 percent and Annette Warren 26.65 percent. All four advance to November. The District 4 seat was not on the primary ballot because only two candidates qualified; incumbent Jennifer Nelson-Lastra faces challenger James Vargas in the general. Voters also approved all three city charter amendments on the ballot, covering the Mayor Pro Tem role, eligibility requirements, and proof of residency, each by wide margins.
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What it could mean for the next two years
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Here is the structural fact worth holding onto. The mayor's chair plus three Council seats are decided in November, which means a majority of the seven member dais can turn over in a single cycle. Whoever sits there will vote on the items this newsletter tracks week after week: utility extension assessments, the FY 2027 and FY 2028 budgets and the millage rate, redevelopment agreements like the one Council has directed staff to bring back for Bimini East, and land use decisions like the ones above. A change of this size on the dais is, by itself, the biggest variable in Cape Coral development over the next two years.
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On specifics, we will be straight with you: no candidate has published a line by line development platform yet. What the advancing candidates have put on the record so far runs to themes rather than ordinances, fiscal discipline, managing growth, public safety, and transparency, with one candidate stressing local self-sufficiency over reliance on grants. That last point touches the CDBG grant work this newsletter follows. As the general election field sharpens its positions, we will hold each candidate's development and budget statements up against what the city is actually deciding, and report the fit without telling you how to vote.
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One thread to connect
During citizens input on August 19, one speaker asked Council to hold off on committing to large projects until after the general election. With a sitting mayor off the November ballot and much of the dais in play, that request is going to come up again. We flag it as a live question, not a position: how much should a Council in transition commit before new members are seated? We will watch how it is handled.
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Sources: Lee County Supervisor of Elections official Summary Results, 2026 Primary Election, page last updated August 21, 2026, for all vote percentages and turnout; Cape Coral Breeze primary coverage, August 20, 2026, for candidate backgrounds and the District 4 matchup; City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Final Action Summary, August 19, 2026, for the citizens input topics. Candidate name spellings verified against the certified results.
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What to Watch · The Week Ahead
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August 26: the assessment roll hearings
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Wednesday's Regular Meeting is almost entirely FY 2026-2027 rate and assessment machinery, all as public hearings. Council takes up stormwater user fees under Resolution 221-26 and the non-ad valorem assessment rolls for solid waste, fire protection, lot mowing, and delinquent utility collections under Resolutions 222-26 through 226-26. The one to read closely is the fire protection roll, Resolution 223-26, which establishes hardship deferrals and an administrative petition procedure over Tier 2 benefit units. These hearings set what lands on your November tax bill.
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August 28: the School District landscaping appeal
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On Friday at 2 p.m., an Appeal of Decisions hearing takes up a single case: the Lee County School District appealing the Hearing Examiner's denial of four landscaping deviations, covering tree planting, foundation landscaping, off-street parking area planting, and buffer requirements, for a site at 214 NW 20th Avenue. It is a clean test of the Hearing Examiner's authority, arriving the same week Council declined to replace that office. We will report the outcome.
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September 2: introductions carried forward
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Two items introduced on August 19 return for their public hearings on September 2: Ordinance 45-26, on accessory structure and garage standards, and Ordinance 51-26, a conservation easement amendment at Yellow Fever Creek Preserve. The two Lee BIA Builders Care donation parcels are also expected back for Introduction that day.
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Sources: City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Agenda, August 26, 2026; City of Cape Coral Appeal of Decisions Agenda, August 28, 2026; City of Cape Coral City Council Regular Meeting Final Action Summary, August 19, 2026, for the September 2 introductions and the Builders Care direction.
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Editor's Pick · Local Happening
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Field of Flags at Bernice Braden Park
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Cape Coral, FL
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The permit Council approved on August 19 puts this display back in place for another year. Sun Broadcasting installs 2,977 American flags at Bernice Braden Park, one for every life lost on September 11, 2001, with the field standing through mid-September. Volunteers plant the flags in early September at the park near the foot of the Cape Coral bridge. If you have never walked through it, this is the month. Bring someone who remembers, and give yourself a few quiet minutes among the rows.
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Editor's pick. Not a paid placement.
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Bernice Braden Park, Cape Coral, FL · Display up through mid-September
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Sponsor
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Need a website that matches the quality of your work? caloosa.studio builds clean, fast sites for Cape Coral small businesses.
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That is The Sunday Brief No. 014. Last week we told you a proposal to replace the Hearing Examiner was the item to watch. On Wednesday, Council said no, while approving a five dollar permit surcharge to chase unlicensed contractors, rezoning its own land toward parks, stepping a Seven Islands parcel back to single family, and sending two surplus lots toward a builders charity. All of it happened with the Mayor Pro Tem in the chair, days after voters left a sitting mayor off the November ballot. This is the slow machinery of a fast-growing city, and it decides more about your bill and your block than any headline does.
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If someone forwarded this to you and you want it in your inbox every Sunday at 7 PM, subscribe free at thecapecoraldigest.com. Cape Coral is growing fast. This is the newsletter that tracks where and how.
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Want to reach these readers?
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The Sunday Brief offers clearly labeled sponsor placements per issue. If your business serves Cape Coral property owners, builders, or buyers, reach out at [email protected] and we will talk fit.
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