I think it would be beneficial to go back 10 to 15 years to see what decisions were made-or not made-in city and county planning. This is not to indict anybody, but to help the current planners, to ask, "How can we do this better over the next 10 or 15 years?"

The people are coming. They're going to show up. We're giving developers the right to take out swamplands and tomato fields and build communities, and yet we're not putting in the necessary infrastructure. The right hand is not talking to the left hand.

You see it in our roads: If I'm on U.S. 41 and need to get to Airport-Pulling Road, why do I have to go all the way down to Golden Gate? Why aren't there more than a couple of thoroughfares that would allow drivers to get around the city more easily? Either no one gave this issue enough thought or someone went out of their way to make travel more difficult, thinking that would stop people from coming.

A politician said to a group that I was with, "There will be no new asphalt poured in the city of Naples, poured or laid, under my watch." But thinking that a refusal to build roads could thwart or stop city growth was ludicrous, because they kept

allowing development.

How can we help current leaders-the planning commission, county commission, city council and mayor-give more thought to the future of this city? How can we make this a more pleasurable place to commute around?

We also need creative solutions to the area's lack of moderate-income housing. No one wants it where they live, and no one likes the idea of eminent domain, but something has got to be done. This problem isn't brand new. Let's look at how other cities and counties with little available land have solved it-places like Palm Beach and West Palm Beach and cities and counties in California.

What about building moderate-income housing on excess government land next to firehouses, libraries, public schools, government offices and post offices?

Here in Naples, there are neighborhoods where older Florida homes occupy large lots. The homes are pleasant, but that land could be used much more expeditiously. What if we came up with some creative method to pay the residents for their homes and move them somewhere temporarily while high-rise, moderately priced condominiums are built? There would be incentives for developers and financial incentives for residents to sell, incentives that would be too attractive to pass up.

The city would have to come up with the money to help, but I think that the area's tax base could pick up some of the cost, with impact fees for developers and increased sales taxes for tourists. Some people will be angry at me for saying we should raise the sales tax for tourists, but we did this when I was in Nashville. The hotels and motels said, "Nobody will come; it's just going to be awful." But Nashville is Music City, and the tourists still came.

In New York, where you pay $200-$400 a night for a hotel room, there's a 20-22 percent tax added to your bill when you check out. It's just part of the total package. There's an excellent opportunity to pick up a lot of money by raising this tax. The climate and the atmosphere are going to stay good, which means the tourists are going to continue to come. Again, let's see what other resort communities have done.

When there are turf wars [on issues], the populace loses. I just want to make this a better place to live. We've got a problem that is only going to get worse, and we have not come up with a real solution. There are flashing lights and sirens going, and nobody's doing enough.

If we don't come up with solutions, we'll be looking at even longer traffic jams. It will take an hour and a half to get anywhere instead of 20 or 30 minutes. You'll wait longer for your meal at a restaurant, and when you dial 911, someone will be there in 20 minutes instead of three.

There will be no one to answer your questions at the dry cleaner, the drugstore or the supermarket. Slowly but surely the service work force disappears. It's a drain.

How do we get a groundswell of popular opinion started in a community that's filled with snowbirds? If we've got bad people in planning or on the commission or the council, how do we throw out the scalawags and get in some new scalawags? If we don't hurry, people are going to wake up five years from now and say, "Wow." This is an opportunity for a huge wake-up call to the community.

-Elliott Singer