Thomas Mayo speaks on FGCU entry enhancements (unpublished 2016)

Before the start of the fall 2015 semester, major renovations to the main entrance at Florida Gulf Coast University were complete. With the project costing $1.5 million dollars, some students were against the renovations. Thomas Mayo, Director of Facilities and Planning at FGCU, defends the decisions made on renovating the FGCU main entrance.

According to the project presentation on the FGCU website, two concrete towers, with FGCU logos and lettering, were to be added to the main entrance replacing the horizontal concrete sign that sat there before. The presentation also showed that “views and vistas” were to be added along FGCU Boulevard.

I selected 10 random FGCU students in a period of three days. I interviewed them, and they were unanimously against the entrance enhancements.

 “I don’t think it benefits FGCU in any way, and I know that the money could have gone to something more beneficial,” said Adrian Perez, senior at FGCU.

Perez said that FGCU should have invested that money into additional parking space on campus.

 Another student, who wished to remain nameless, said, “Unnecessary construction does not promote sustainability and if we are sustainable we should cut that.”

 FGCU was originally going to be a distance-learning university. That decision influenced the original FGCU entrance design.

According to Mayo, the project was proposed by Wilson Bradshaw, the president of FGCU. Bradshaw felt that FCGU needed something more distinctive.

The entry enhancement plans were cosmetic. There were no plans for additional roads or infrastructure proposed.

According to Mayo, FGCU spent over a year planning the entrance. A committee of students, faculty and staff were assembled to design the entrance.

The intention for this entrance was to emphasize the natural Florida landscape. FGCU sits alongside commercial and housing developments with formal landscape work.

“In the near future, with all of these developments, we’re really going to be the only frontage with natural Florida,” said Mayo.

According to Mayo, the intention of this entrance is to emphasize what FGCU represents. With both the concrete monuments and the landscape work symbolizing both modern construction and the natural Florida landscape coming together.

The committee studied entrances in neighboring state universities, and that influenced how the committee approached the project. As a whole, FGCU wanted something that represented the school, and it did not want to recycle any current designs from other state universities.

Currently renovations are still not complete. Mayo says that additional landscaping is to be completed along FGCU Boulevard during the summer 2016 semesters.

“The entrance projected us from a community college image to a Division 1 university image,” said Robert Green, the Welcome Center representative.

Green is the FGCU employee who sits in the information booth, located at the main entrance, and waves to commuters every day.

Green says that he encountered negative comments from some students while it was being developed. However, after the completion he says he has gotten positive reviews from everyone.

Green says from his experience everyone likes the tower, especially with the FGCU logo and lettering on top, and that everyone likes how the tower and horizontal concrete sign light up at night.

Green says the biggest complaint he has gotten is about the right side of FGCU Boulevard not having a sidewalk. He says many people find it hard to take pictures of the entrance because there is no sidewalk. He also says that many students have told him that the price of the project is too high.

Whether one agrees with the FGCU entrance or not, President Bradshaw felt that FGCU needed something monumental. It needed to something to represent how much FGCU has grown since 1997, especially after the Dunk City impact.

The entrance enhancements also tell a story, Mayo says. The stark contrast between the concrete towers and its surrounding landscape shows a marriage between nature and man-made structures, two contrasting ideas coming together to advocate sustainability.

 To him, that is what represents true sustainability. 

Snapseed offers a simple look and wide options

In both the App Store and Google Play Store sit countless different photo-editing applications that offer similar tools. Even popular social media applications such as Instagram and Snapchat offer their own image-editing tools.

Among the countless number of photo-editing applications sits Snapseed.

Snapseed is a simple, powerful application that brings professional grade photo-editing tools to your fingertips.

Snapseed’s interface is simple. All of its tools are well-presented to users when they select the photo they want to edit.

For beginners, Snapseed will take a bit of time to learn, but the power of its tools makes the learning curve worth it.

All edits on the application are layered, so a user can easily remove a specific edit by just removing its layer.

Snapseed’s image-editing tools are deeper than just applying a filter. A user can adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation and highlights of the selected image. Does the image emit a depressing, cool tone? A user can adjust the image to give it a warmer and lively tone.

Read the rest on the Eagle News website by clicking here.

Council goes ahead with Fracking Ban (2015 unpublished)

Residents of Estero praised the Estero Village Council on Wednesday for its plan to draft a hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) ban in spite of proposed House Bill 191, which would give the state the authority to regulate oil and gas operations.

Two weeks before, Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, presented his bill to the Estero council meeting. It encompasses exploration, development, production, storage and transportation related to fracking and other oil and gas operations.

 If passed, the bill would preempt local municipalities’ power to pass ordinances banning fracking in their city limits, and it would nullify any such ordinances passed after Jan. 1, 2015. The village of Estero, which incorporated Dec. 31, 2014, took over its own zoning in April 2015.

Timeline of previous events: Click here

 “A county or municipality may, however, enforce an existing zoning ordinance adopted before Jan. 1, 2015, if the ordinance is otherwise valid,” according to both bill texts.

 Rep. Rodrigues did say that negotiations are taking place with Florida League of Cities and Florida Association of Counties to determine what authority local governments will have. Rodrigues did not disclose any specifics at the Nov. 23, meeting.

 The Council has announced that it is drafting “Ordinance No. 2015-19” an ordinance that limits certain excavation techniques relating to hydraulic fracturing, acid fracturing and acid stimulation.  

 The residents of Estero thanked and praised the Council for its decision to go ahead with an ordinance, and there’s little question that the ordinance will pass.

 Both the Council and residents are unanimously against fracking taking place in Estero.

 “I do not think fracking should be allowed in Estero or Florida as a whole,” said Nicholas Batos, Mayor of Estero, Florida.

The Village of Estero Council will vote on the ordinance on Dec. 16. 

Developer proposes new housing development near Estero, Florida (2015 unpublished)

A developer is proposing a new 1,325-unit housing development near Estero, Florida. However, while the Lee County Planning and Development Staff watch the developer’s presentation, some residents disagree with this development project.

 Corkscrew Farms developer presented a lengthy PowerPoint presentation made by representatives from Camprop Inc. and several consultants from several organizations who make up the proposed Corkscrew Farms project team.

 The Corkscrew Farms site sits on a Density Reduction/Groundwater Resource district, which is a problem for many of the citizens living in nearby Estero. Florida. The DR/GR districts were created to preserve areas that are crucial to resupplying underground aquifers.

 The development proposal goes against the DR/GR that is set on the area. The current standard only allows 136 housing units to be built on the proposed site.

 Camprop’s developers say the decades-long agricultural activity has negatively affected the Corkscrew Farms site.  The site has sod, watermelon and cucumber farms. Consultants on the project have said that the introduction of fertilizer has hurt the water tables by redirecting the water away from its natural flow.

 In exchange for developing more homes, Lee County is requiring Camprop Inc. to restore the land and historic water flow that has been spoiled because of the agricultural activity that has taken place on the site.

 “Almost 66 % of the land will be restored, preserved with conservations on them,” said Ray Blacksmith, president of Camprop Inc.

 During the comment period, Estero activist Patty Whitehead disagreed with the developers’ characterization “smart growth”. A statement that was made in the presentation to further maintain the claims the developer made about restoring land on the site.

 “It is a complete perversion of smart-growth principles,” Whitehead said.

 Whitehead also said that approval would lead to “the widening of Corkscrew Road to service all the point sources of congestion represented by the gate and entrances to new developments.”

 Whitehead cited studies that bigger roads lead to more use causing even more congestion.

 “Widening roads to solve traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity,” cited Whitehead from a recent traffic study.  

 However, Joe Cameratta, CEO of Camprop Inc., said that the developer wouldn’t be responsible if Corkscrew Road must be widened.

 Peter Cangialosi, environmental director of the Estero Council of Community Leaders, expressed his concern that the development would mean increased interaction between humans and wild animals.

After the two-day hearing, the hearing examiner will make her recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners on the proposal. The public will know what the decision is in the incoming weeks.