CARNY TO CONGRESS
Adam Botana From Carny to Congress
CARNY TO CONGRESS
CARNY TO CONGRESS EP 7 - Dan Allers
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Good morning. Welcome to Carney to Congress, presented by Baywater Exclusive Boat Club, the only family owned and operated boat club in Southwest Florida. We're here with a guest, our first guest of the show of the of the new redo of uh Carney to Congress, Mayor Allers. How you doing, buddy?
SPEAKER_04I'm good, beautiful morning.
SPEAKER_01Well a little bit. Not humid, is it? Yeah. We're recording on Friday, so this will be air on uh Sunday morning. Uh but we're glad to have uh Mayor Allers here. Dan, a friend of mine, Dan Allers. Um we've we've gone through a lot together through the process, so we'll we'll check on a couple things. We'll probably talk about property taxes. I'm sure. Everybody's talking about property taxes. Uh Dan's uh a local here from Fort Myers Beach, does golf carts. Tell me about tell about tell about your business. Let's start off with that and just kind of just a background of how you got involved and just in politics and everything in the business. Start from the top.
SPEAKER_04So, you know, I came down in 2012. Okay. Came over the bridge and never left. You know, I had a friend that had been coming down here for what was her name? Her name's Angie. She actually still lives on the beach. Okay. Well, she just moved off the beach, but okay. So yeah, she she uh so we were friends back in Minnesota. Just joking. So um actually Megan knows her. So we're we're all good friends with her. So so she had been coming down here with friends of hers on spring break, and and she one day said, I'm gonna move to Fort Myers Beach, and at the time I was just getting ready to either go to Denver, I was working for Direct TV at the time. Okay. So I was gonna go out to the I was gonna go out to the corporate office and transfer it out there, and out of the blue she called, she's like, Why don't you come and check out the beach? So I instead of going west, I came south and never went, never, never made it to the never made it to Denver.
SPEAKER_01Wow. And originally you're from Minnesota. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so then I got down here and you know, took 30 days off, just sat on the beach, did nothing, and uh got a pretty good tan. That's probably the last time I sat on the beach, quite honestly. Um then I met my wife Megan uh later that year at the Shamrock of all places, which is now gone, but uh the people that are from here probably know the Shamrock. So we actually met in the Shamrock and we've been married since 2019, been together since 2013. So um what got me involved was actually my wife.
SPEAKER_01You know, I was always Well her family's been involved in Fort Myers, right? For a lot of years.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, her family's actually had a condo down here on Fort Myers Beach at Kalua, which is actually just getting ready to open up next week again, uh since the late 70s. So they've had it so she's been coming down here a long, long time. But when we met, she was still living in Atlanta. And I was down here full time, and then she just came down full time. So sold her condo up in Atlanta, and and uh she's been down here full time ever since. And she works too.
SPEAKER_01I mean, she's always working. I know.
SPEAKER_04She she's always working, so she was heavily involved in the chamber, um you know, back in the day when when uh I forgot his name now. Start last night with an end. But anyway, he uh she got involved and that got me involved. And uh, you know, I was fine just being behind the scenes, and then the more stuff I did, the more my name started going around, and the next thing you know, it's like you should go on a committee. So I did I went on Bay Oaks, board cab committee, and then from there to the LPA and then to the council.
SPEAKER_01I remember meeting Dan a couple times when I was door knocking, like running around, and I remember it was your election, right? Because your election was in a it was early or something. There was something going on.
SPEAKER_04In 2020, it actually changed to line up with the national cycle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because it was in it was in the spring or something. Because I remember you driving around like when I was door knocking, and you guys you remember coming up on all the doors out there, and it would be all the hangers. Yeah, you know, and I was shoving stuff indoors. You guys had the high-class hangers. I just shoved the crap in the door, you know. High class hangers. Sorry I missed you, Adam. Vote for me. Yeah, but I remember you were you were waving out there on election time, and uh then I remember meeting you at after the the general, after the after the um primary and coming over and saying hi to you. And this guy, I mean, this guy was a fisherman. I mean you had like the just the tan. Weren't you like a captain or something? Well, I'm I still am, but I never was a never was a fisherman.
SPEAKER_04We spent a lot of time on the boat, though. Yeah, we'd be on the boat all the time.
SPEAKER_01So we were talking about the pontoon and the deck boat and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04What kind of boat did you have? Um back then, well, we started with uh I don't think it was like a $3,500 boat. I mean, this thing was so bad it was but we loved it, we we used the heck out of it. Yeah, speaking of Angie, so Megan and I and Angie all went in and got this boat because we all wanted to be on the water. And we had it, it had a little 40 horsepower on it, couldn't go very far. But I'm like, I gotta have a bigger motor. So I put a 75 horse on it, things went downhill after that. We actually took the 40 horse motor up the Pine Island Sound to up all the way up through Mount Lachey, all the way up to Boquilia. Holes and then and came back the other side, came down, you know, the other side of Pine Island in this little 40 horsepower boat. What kind of boat was it? It's a pontoon. It was a pontoon. Oh, god, we were getting swamped because it was we were coming back on a Monday, it was a holiday weekend. Oh, that's the one. And you know, thank God we could get in the shallows, but we were still these big boats going by just washing us. We but so we had to pull into the ragged ass saloon. Oh, okay. We're soaking wet. I mean, we're covered from head to toe. I've got it trimmed as much as I can. I got everybody in the back and water still coming over the bottom. So we finally make it to the ragged ass saloon and the band stops playing. They're like, who the crazy suckers that just came in? Now we're just soaking wet. But it was a it was a good time. So we had that boat, and then we we uh we were out actually, we were actually went out for a little boat ride, and we pulled up to the sandbar, and I'm like, God, this thing just feels something doesn't feel right, you know. So as everybody's off running around, I look underneath, every cross member was rusted, completely gone. So the only thing holding it together was the plywood. So when it goes over a wave, like one pony and goes. It was flexing like it wasn't supposed to be doing right. So I'm like, Megan, we gotta get back on the boat. She's like, we just got here. I said, well, too bad, you know. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta go. And I told I showed her underneath, and she's like, Oh, yeah, we gotta go. So we got it back, and I sold it on Craigslist to somebody who wanted whatever. And then we found another one close by. It was like a $2,500 boat, but it was red, white, and blue, had the American flag on it. Okay. I think that one had a 60-horse Suzuki. Now we've got a Crest, a crest pontoon. So it was hey, pontoons are the best, they're my favorite boats down here.
SPEAKER_01I love it's a couch on the water. Oh, it's great.
SPEAKER_04Now we're up to a tritune. We're high polluting now, you know.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean we get to use it. Yeah, but that's that's what happens, you're busy. Yeah, you know, and that's the thing. Like, I uh we've got uh you know close to 70 boats here all together between Reynolds and Club, and I love the pontoons, man. It's just easy, simple, comfortable. And like the deck boats are fun, the center concerts are fun. I love the cat. We've got a like a 23-foot cat, which is great for just running around, yeah. You know, it's smooth, riding it's like a big pontoon. But yeah, they're just nice, it's easy, it's comfortable. People are like, oh no, I don't want a pontoon. You get on that thing, you're like, you know, this is a good one.
SPEAKER_04I used to manage a boat for a guy that had two 350s on his Bennington. We could get the cabbage key in no time. He's doing 65 across the sound. We had eight people and we were doing 52, and it was just just running. Yeah, it was nice. That's nice. Part of me wishes I would, and then he sold his house on Fort Myers Beach and he gave me the first right of refusal. And I probably should have bought that bite boat at hand sife, but it was way out of my price range at the time.
SPEAKER_01Big boy. Well, yeah, those things was it ten wide or was it an eight? It was ten wide, yeah. Yeah, those are nice boats.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was ten wide, and it but it was it wasn't, you know, Bennington makes a nice boat. The guy actually he makes the ladders for Bennington. That's okay.
SPEAKER_01So he's from Indiana then. Yes, exactly. Yeah, they're all from Indiana Bristol. Yeah, Bristol, you know, there's a lot of Amish, a lot of Amish people up there. That and you know, it seems like every R V comes from there too. Yeah, yeah. When the carnival business, we go up there to uh northern Indiana. So yeah, that's all all there, a lot of stuff. So, but yeah, I mean that's the the boats are great down here. Uh we love them with the club. I mean the members love the pontoons, love just coming here, but that's the thing, like the average boater puts 25 hours a year, that's where the club works out better for a lot of people. Yeah. Just a simple, easy way. You don't have to worry about the hassles on the owning. Like when we when we first started, like I was telling you before we started the show, you know, we started with two rental boats. And I remember like we had some playtime pontoons, and these things were bad, man. I mean, it was just they were just they were cheap, you know, back then. But like a wave would come one pontoon would go up, then the other one you like, you get two guys, and it was like a wave on the boat. I was like, okay, these things need to go. I think we sold them for more than we actually paid for them when we got rid of them. But uh, we had mercs on them. That was the old two strokes, you know. Yeah, because we started in 04. Yeah, I mean it was a pain to get started, but once they got it going, it was great, you know. But then we went over to the Yamaha's, which were more reliable to just turnkey, better for renters. Yeah, but then you know, you go back and forth.
SPEAKER_04But Mercury's or Yamaha's are great boats, but um Yeah, we took our little 40 horse out, the same person that was on the boat that I told you about, you know, where we with the ragged ass. So we go down, we got out to uh I think it was Wiggins Pass, and she's like, Can we go on the golf? I've never been on the golf, I want to go on the golf. And I'm like, it's it was rough. I'm like, nah, it's probably not a good no, it wasn't. It was uh new pass we went out. And I thought I'll just go back into Big Carlos Pass, you know, do yeah, but I'm like I'm just you know, against my better judgment, I probably shouldn't do this, but I'm like, okay, we're you know, we've got trailing seas, so we'll be fine. Well, the wind was blowing so hard that the 40 horsepower motor couldn't keep up with it. So as the waves would come up, I'd have to pull back on the throttle so I didn't drive into the into the crest of the wave, you know. So I'm getting the rhythm and everything's going fine. I'm I could see them just getting ready to turn in, you know. And I'd take my eye off for two seconds, and the wave came and it drove me right down. I drove the that little 40 horse drove right into the crest. Water came over, she came floating to the back, it took the anchor out from inside, went underneath, and wrapped around the propeller, and it was dead in the water. Oh, these waves, and and and it's only a you know, it's an old and it's so I had to put a life jacket on, jump in the water, cut the line off, get back in the boat. Jesus, dude. I said, This is exactly why I do this. This is why you do this, yeah. So you gotta listen to yourself. That's how as a captain, you know, you gotta you gotta go with your first instinct. The last time I had an issue, same pontoon, yeah. We were taking Megan's grandfather out, he was 91, 92 at the time. And and you know, I'm getting the family's like, oh, but this might we're holiday or whatever. This might be his last sunset, and they're giving me that. I'm like, but I no gas stations are open. I got maybe enough to get out there, but I'm pretty sure I don't have enough to get back. And sure enough, so I'm like, I'll go, we'll go out to the end, you can watch sunset, and we'll come back in. Then once I get out there, then you know everybody's like, oh come on, come on, you're gonna give me another. I don't want to be the guy that doesn't let him see his last sunset, right? If this is his last sunset, you ran out of gas. On my way back, halfway back, run out of gas. Of course, everything's closed. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Luckily, there were several boats coming by, and so we we could I don't know, it's probably someone from Naples, whatever, but they're coming by in their 40, 45 foot four engine motors going by, and we were able to flag them down. So I'm anchored just outside, you know, the little zigzags in the back bay there. Yeah, and they got the music playing, they got the you know, so we're like they're never gonna hear us, and they they actually saw us. So they come over and there's like three or four girls on the back, and then the guy's driving, and his eyes, the 90-year-old, his eyes just lit up, and they're leaning over and they're like, everything okay? He goes, I'm fine, I've got a diaper on. This is a 90-year-old that's saying, so the girls are standing there in their bikinis, you know, he's all he was having a good time. He was having a really good time.
SPEAKER_00This is the greatest sunset ever, Dan. I love it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he's like, I'm fine. So that was that I think that was his last sunset, too. So I it was you know, went on a high night. But the message is don't don't the captain, don't, don't, don't uh let somebody talk into something.
SPEAKER_01Well, I know that's what I did one time when I uh because I was getting flight lessons, and uh that's a very expensive hobby. So I I cross-country solo one time, and after I did that, I took out the group from Paragon Flight School in Fort Myers. Like, hey, we'll do a sunset, we got the double decker, this is summertime. Come on over, you know, celebrate. So they brought the pilots over, the trainers, you know. There's probably like six or seven of us. We went out on the double decker. It was a nice, it was a summertime, so it's like July, August. Wasn't bad. So we go up to Flippers over at Big Uh Big Carlos there. Good food there. Oh, yeah, good food. Got some appetizers, some drinks, and you know, I've got some buckets of rum, we're having some fun. And you know, and I look at my phone and you see this like cell, you know, storm. I'm like, ah, you know what, we'll be okay. What I'll do is like I see the cell, like it ain't gonna make it to the beach. You know, we can go out to the golf, look at some, you know, it's kind of calm, not bad. So we run out, we run out big Carlos, okay? All of a sudden that cell decides just to triple in size. Okay. So we're out there and we're coming in, like I'm trying to find new pass, and all of a sudden the wind's coming up and the waves, I'm in this big pontoon, 31-foot-long, double-decker, you know, this thing is huge, right? And I'm sitting there and the the main flight guy, his wife, is nervous, like she doesn't like boats. I go, hey, as long as I'm smiling, we're all good. Just keep an eye on me. So she's taking the bucket of rum down one bucket of rum. And the whole time she's sitting there watching me just sucking down the other bucket of rum. And I'm like going through these waves, and I'm like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. What did I get myself? Oh, yeah. And I was trying to find the pass because you can't cut it because it's sandy. So there's this Coast Guard, like the cutter, is just sitting out there watching, just watching me the whole time. Like, look at your head, look at this clown, right? You know, coming through, and we're getting through the pass, and it's like because the waves are coming out and it's windy, and we get in, and then it's then it just breaks, and it's a great sunset. You know, we're all sitting there. I was like, but she was trashed, she drank every bucket of rum that she could get. They are dangerous. Oh, yeah, she was having a great time, but uh yeah, we uh we were able to use the slide and go through that. I was like, Oh, it was totally fine. But I was like, oh shit, oh shit.
SPEAKER_04Of all the boats I need to be in a double decker, this is not it.
SPEAKER_01This is not the best boat. This is not the best boat.
SPEAKER_04Those storms are horrible. I I used to, when we first moved into our house that we're in now, we we uh I used to you know find boats and fix them and and sell them. And so I found this boat up in uh one of the marinas just by one of the Cape Coral bridges there. And so I'm bringing the boat back. And I knew either the lower unit was going out on it or the prop was spun, one or the other. And I was so I took a chance that it was a uh the prop and got it for next to nothing. Actually, that boat is the reason Megan got a uh her her ring. That boat paid for her ring, actually. So so I bought I got the boat for next to nothing, and we're coming back. Same story, you know. I'm I'm I'm on the boat by myself because she had to drive back in the truck, and I see that you know, you see the cow clouds popping up, and I'm coming just about to come underneath the Santa Belle Bridge. And the it's black. I'm like, I know we're I'm getting wet. So I take everything, but it was a cuddy boat, so I put everything down in the cuddy, and I'm standing up there and all of a sudden the skies open up. And I I couldn't see Fort Myers Beach anymore, but I was the bow was pointed right at right at Pink Shell.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I'm holding the steering wheel and I didn't move, and it rained for probably 20 minutes, and I was only doing maybe five knots. I mean, I was just enough to keep the pop works. Yeah, well, just enough to keep the waves from coming over the bow, right? Yeah, and I just held on to it and I still couldn't see anything, but I'm like, I can't stop. So I'm moving along because if I go any faster, the prop's gonna have to. Jesus Dan. Right? So I'm cruising, I'm cruising. You have more stories than I do, and I got a few boats. Yeah, yeah. So I'm cruising, all of a sudden the the rain lets up, and there's nothing in front of me. Nothing. What? I turn around, Sanibel's over here, Fort Myers Beach is over there. I was about a mile and a half, two miles out into the street. Oh, you were just going out and towards the room. It was just pushing me out, and I was just holding the wheel straight. I didn't move the I didn't move the wheel at all. It just pushed me. It just pushed me. I was either gonna run into shore and run aground, or I was gonna be out in the golf, and I turn around and I'm like, oh, so then I hustled back in. Yeah. Of course, Megan's blowing my phone up, which is down in the cutty, you know. Where yeah, you were supposed to be here half hour ago. I'm on my way.
SPEAKER_01Well, I know one time we uh we would go skeet shooting out in a golf, right? So we I went and got a skeet shooter, and it was a good time. Like I take a couple shotguns, we got there, and it was calm. Took a couple buddies, right? And uh it had a carpeted pontoon deck so you could just drill the the launcher right into the deck so there was no problems there. And it was like not a bad day, and we're just kind of out there as three guys, so one in the front, one shooting, then one driving, right? And we didn't drink until we got on the way back, because you know, guns and all that's probably a good thing, probably a good thing. So we're coming back, right? And uh, you know, we're we're we're riding out there and we're just going and going. And we were going out for like a couple hours and we turned around and was like, oh man, sure is like way, way and we're in a pontoon. We're just it took us like 45 minutes to get back, actually running, because we're just kind of there's a following sea, and just before you know it, you're up your way out there, like, oh, okay, that's probably not the best thing in a pontoon. Uh, but yeah, that was always fun, but yeah, it can happen. And I mean, I've gotten stuck out there at dark, you know, you don't know which way is up, you get like lost, you get vertigo, like which way is up, you know, left, right, and you start spinning. You can't see land. And you're doing a GPS, you're like, oh, okay, that's you know, a little different. But uh, yeah, that's uh that's fun. That's that's why you join the boat club, you don't have to worry about it. But you do have great stories about it for sure.
SPEAKER_04Jake, you got any horror stories?
SPEAKER_02I wish. About boats? Yeah. No, unfortunately. The only horror story I have is the one time that Adam called me, and he's like, hey bud, what are you doing? Come get you. Okay, I live in North Fort Myers. What does he do? He drives a boat from Benita here. He drives all the way to North Fort Myers, where all those derelict boats were sitting out forever. He picked me up right there. I got out of my car and I hopped off of a rock onto his boat. And then he says, drive it back. So he he made me drive the boat. Well, not all the way, but he, you know, it was a cat, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was a cat, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But he had me, I drove that boat all the way back into the bay, right before his house, and then he took over because he was a low weight.
SPEAKER_01I don't know what I I was doing something, I was I was picking something up there or something. You've never been on that boat or a boat or something. Like, come on.
SPEAKER_02It was it was something like that. And uh it was like uh it was a mental cleanse. Because one, I was like, okay, so I'm in control of both of our lives right now. I have to make sure that we are absolutely safe. Where's the live chat? Alright, but uh no, it was uh that that was uh a fun time. There was um another time where uh when I was a kid, my grandma had a house across the street from Sandy Hill. We used to call Sandy Hill, it's now called Kayak. Um we used to take uh her little kayak out, and uh coming back one day, I was I used to drag my feet in like the mud because it was pretty shallow and uh I have scars all the way down my legs because I got hit with them clams, man. Yeah, the oysters sliced me and the salt water that was.
SPEAKER_01Oh man. Um yeah, that's not uh that's not a good uh that's not a good story there. No. That's not no oyster cuts are not good. No, you go go right to the hospital. Yeah, do not pass.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, get in the shower, clean those things up.
SPEAKER_01We've got uh we've got a little bit different spot this uh time here, so you got a little bit different view, Jake's off camera since we have a a guest here.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I just was bounced between you guys and the boats.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's good, it's good. I love it, love it.
SPEAKER_02So look at the boat cam is much clearer.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, we don't have the screen in front of it. We're outside, so the new spot here for the it's he's a good spot, it's a beautiful day. Yeah, it's nice, it's nice. So if you're if you're listening to this on Sunday, come on over to Baywater and check it out. About boats. Unfortunately, the only horror story I have is the one time that Adam called me. You know what? It's funny. I'll tell you how it's completely just my buddy and I'm just having a tea.
SPEAKER_02So he drives a boat from beneath it here in politics and drives all the way to North Fort Myers where all those derelict boats were sitting out forever. Yep, right there. I got out of my car and I hopped off of a rock onto his boat. So the Ford Chamber of Commerce great. Drive a couple of times. And then uh they got me drive the boat.
SPEAKER_01But he had been all the way back into the bay right before it's out, and then he took a low wake. Oh, it's chicken's annually. It was a four. That's four. Sorry, we can bleep them. No, it's fine I do. No, it's not like a big thing. But uh I was like, we're something like that. And uh and we're allowed to do it. It was like uh it was a middle colour. I'm arguing about tech D and all that we're gonna get here.
SPEAKER_02Right, but uh no, it was uh Carney to copy. That was uh a fun time. That's great. Another time where uh when I was there, my car came out because it's a statehouse, right? Because it's now called the roll off the top.
SPEAKER_01Carney to Congress is good, and it makes everybody nervous and all the time.
SPEAKER_02And uh coming back one day, I was able to drag my feet, so we have to go.
SPEAKER_01I have scars all the way down my legs because I got hit with the speech. Yeah, that was that was an important one. Yeah, the oyster sliced me up. I'm pretty excited about it. Yeah, no, it was great. I mean unfortunately we couldn't get into the Senate on that side, but hey, you know, um make the ass like, hey, that's important to me. I always love uh like you know, hey Rum Rumbuck does a great job for you guys. You know, he's uh he's a lobbyist that works for the town, but we have a great great relationship. And I almost don't even think you need a lobbyist, Dan, at certain times because but sometimes there's yeah, I just was bounced between the guys and the city officials that don't get along good with their uh with their representatives, or they just don't talk, or the representatives are not good people. Uh and it happens, right? So but uh I like helping out folks that you know don't have uh lobbyists into that. Yeah, check out the podcast, have a podcast ton, and we're gonna keep doing that over the next couple years. But uh that was great to get them uh a million bucks for for you know for the rebuild on Fort Myers Beach. So hopefully it makes avoid the veto pen and we'll be here to go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean they they did so much that whole organization did so much for everybody after the storm and giving out five hundred dollar gift cards and just they step up every time and what they're trying to do with that building is have a place for all the other nonprofits that lost their buildings too, to be able to ha come in and have a space and you know use it and and that's so it's truly a community community building that the women's club is spearheading. But they got some powerhouse women behind. That but when they get the they get they get moving they get they get their their mindset on something they ain't stopping for maybe maybe they'll get some land back control there.
SPEAKER_01I tell you, we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_04You know, it's coming on the referendum innit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's we got a couple things in a referendum this year. So I think there's more referendums statewide and locally than there is a good year to have a referendum because they're all gonna be talking about that's definitely yeah you know yeah we got a couple uh dolphin out there right in the right in the back bay right here. That's pretty cool chasing fish. Uh yeah, we've got a couple referendums on the ballot for Fort Myers Beach. Um we've got the one with the mosquito control to see if they want to merge into Lee County. That's a referendum there. Um, you know, Lee County Mosquito Control does a great job. They do amazing things. They're already helping Fort Myers Beach. We can feel the museums coming out right now. Uh but you know, with Fort Myers Beach Mosquito Control, they've been around for a long time. There's a board there. I don't know exactly what's going on or what they're trying to do with that that group, you know. I know there's some people out there on the beach that does it, but I think it just saved you some money. We gotta we gotta get rid of the layers government uh that happens, and uh we'll we'll touch on it a little bit more. There's another one there with Fort Myers Beach Fire. Uh there's a referendum on that for Iona and Fort Myers Beach Fire to merge. They both have to vote on it to see if they want to do that. And this is a perfect segue into look at that. Did you see that, Jake? It's right there. Yeah, you can see it on the camera. That's cool. That's cool. Wants his cameo. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Uh, but there's a couple things on there, you know, and uh we'll dive into a little bit on property taxes big. We probably don't agree on everything, but you know, it's always good to have a conversation. Sure. You know, I was listening this morning, uh coming back to take my mom. Uh she's on a trip, so I gotta babysit the little chihuahua while alone with Nugget. Uh but she's out of town for a week. Uh but I was coming back and I was listening to Jason Jones this morning, and I didn't hear uh our property praiser on there. Matt Caldwell, he does a good job, but there was some stuff on there, and I was just listening, and they're like, well, you know, if we get rid of this, they're gonna just put another another fee on, or they're gonna they're gonna do this and that. And I was just kind of surprised, and I'm just I don't I don't like the scare tactics, you know, because uh so you you want to leave you want to vote against this because you're worried about your local city or county putting another fee on. Well, no, the state is putting a referendum out to you guys to decide if you want to make homestead exemption, raise it from 50 to 150 the first year and then two to two fifty the second year for homesteader properties only, uh with a possibility of going to zero at a later date. And the the stuff I've seen is people like, oh well if they do that, we're we just can't do the services. We can't we can't come get you and find and I just I'm just kind of disappointed. I think you should try to say, like, hey, how can we cut the you know, how can we cut the fat? You know, how can we really look at what we can do to tighten our belt to be more efficient? And I'm just kinda kind of disappointed in some of the things I've seen out there where people are like, oh, you're not gonna have your services, we're gonna have to we're gonna have to shut down parks. Well, I understand you gotta look at everything. But I think what's happening is if this happens and it passes, you know, the cities and counties or the you know, special district are gonna have to put this up there and if you know, I mean it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna save you money. I mean you type it in there, it saves you two grand, saves you f you know, fifteen hundred dollars. That's a that's a big deal. Now there's certain things that you need to have to run a city, and of course, but again, this is like I talked with a county uh and I was talking with uh Kevin Rwain, who's a great guy, great commissioner. We get along, we talk. We never used to talk as much, but we do now. Yeah, but we get along and goes, Well, we haven't raised our ad valorum in 18 years. Yeah, but your property values have quadrupled, you know, in that time. So you know, there's a little bit of you know, back and forth, back and forth. It's gonna be interesting. At the end of the day, it's up to the people. You know, our governor wanted this, the house, we fought back to carve out schools because we want to protect the schools, because that is something that really is important to a lot of people around the state. Uh that was really important to my uh my my speaker, Sam Garrison, is gonna be speaker this coming this coming year after uh Speaker uh Perez is out. Uh and he's actually gonna be an ambassador now. Congratulations to that. So he's gonna be he's uh well he's got nominated to be ambassador to Brazil. Um so that's important to uh my speaker, the schools, his wife's a teacher, you know, so those are things along those lines. But I was just kind of surprised. But again, it's a referendum, goes to the voters, it's got to get 60 percent. We'll see where it ends there. I'm sure Dan, you'll you'll give me a little bit more on the cities, how you feel about it, and what you think. I'm sure there's there's a lot of stuff we can educate each other on, but what's your opinion? Yeah, you know, I've never been one one I never look back, right?
SPEAKER_04Once a decision's made, the decision's made. It's not you if you can't change it, you've got to figure out your way through it, right? And I'm also not one that believes in scare tactics either. I mean it it I think unfortunately when you get referendums, you get that from both sides. Each side wants to win, right? So you're both sides are gonna put the heaviest cake icing on the cake they can. And I just actually had a meeting with our town manager today, and you know, I let him know that my my stance is not to do that. My stance is to gather the information. Whatever it's gonna affect, however it's gonna affect us locally, we can't control what the county does, obviously. My biggest fear is the trickle-down effect because when you're in Lee County and you're a municipality and you're dealing with Lee County services, they're gonna take a big haircut, and how does that trickle down to us? Things that are outside our control, right?
SPEAKER_01Like Banina has big reserves. Fort Myers Beach, you guys are doing a great job. You're getting a lot better than it used to be.
SPEAKER_04Slowly getting back there, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you got wiped out. So, I mean, there's gonna be stuff, and I'm we're here to help you out. I mean, from the state level, but yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I mean, I you know, we're we're gonna look at it as what is gonna be what is this gonna, what is the numbers if this passes, what's it gonna look like to us? And then I think what you have to do is you have to educate your your constituency and say, here's how here's what it's gonna take, here's here's what it costs, here are the scenarios that are gonna play out based on the dollars that are coming in, and then you gotta leave it up to the people that were elected to make the decision, right? I don't think it's fair to put the decision on staff to say we're gonna cut this or we're gonna do that or we're gonna raise this fee or we're gonna do that. Here's the options, and let the elected officials make the decision. That's what they got put there for. Yeah. And then you live, live and die by your decision. So I think that's a tack that we're gonna take. Now, is it good? I think everybody wants to save some money in the rumblings that I'm hearing. People are starting to understand that, you know, maybe this where my biggest hiccup was is it it to me it seemed like this was put forward without a lot of thought. It it was, and that's not a knock on the governor or or the legislature, but it's a this seemed like get up here for two days, we're gonna pass this, here's what it is, and then go ahead and go home. That's what it at least it felt like to me. Without having discussions about, you know, national disasters. How are we how are we gonna, you know, there was talk about revenue neutral, then there was talk about a grant, and those things kind of went away by the wayside. So it was just here, you're gonna take this and now it's gonna be you're gonna scare tactic us, and we're telling you you're gonna do this kind of thing. And somewhere in the middle it's gonna work. I think everybody wants to save some money. Nobody's gonna say they don't want to pay less taxes, right? Um but like I had a conversation last night with Ed Ryan and and and and Susan, that you know, when your toilet doesn't flush, or you know, yeah, can you call a plumber? Sure. But if it's in the street and there's nobody there to to turn the water off, you know, and that's not a scare tactic, that's a reality. Because if you get to a point for us, it's not gonna be as bad as probably other places because we're a tourist tourist-driven, so we don't have a ton of homesteaded properties.
SPEAKER_01Who's gonna really take it tough? It's gonna be the rural counties. Yeah, they're gonna be that's where it's a whole different deal. But yeah.
SPEAKER_04But I you know, and I and I can see, you know, Cape Coral, I think they're said they're gonna lose 46 million, county's gonna lose way more than that. So how they're gonna adjust that, I it's it's a lot of work. But I think it's a little too early to say fees are gonna go up or services are gonna, you know, something's going to change, right? My hope is that nobody loses their job over this because saving $2,000 a year on homestead taxes and losing your job, you know. Yeah. I think you would ask somebody, I'd rather pay my homestead taxes than than lose my job completely, especially if I've been there for a while. So I I'm hoping that doesn't happen. I think there'll be some, you know, there'll be some shrapnel from from the decision. How that shakes out, we we don't necessarily know yet. And to your point, it's still gotta get through, still gotta get through the 60% of the voters. Do I think it's personally gonna pass? Yeah, I think I think it probably will.
SPEAKER_01You know, I and I I agree with it. You know, when when this first coming, like we've been talking about this for a while, you know, like what do we do? Because homestead originally, I think it was originally done, I want to say 40, 50 years ago, $50,000. That's you know what a house was back then? This is a this is a benefit for Floridians. And you think about it at a longer period of time, so like say it's a homestead at 250, and somehow we figure it like this passes, okay? It passes 60%. Then we got to figure out how to implement it. And that's where that's where it's really gonna come in. Sure. How are we gonna how are we gonna implement this at a state level? You know, how's the laws gonna come down? And that's when we're gonna really be talking, hey Dan, what are you gonna do about how's this gonna help you? If how's this gonna hurt you, what's gonna really happen, you know, if a hurricane comes, what are we doing? State's always there. State was there last time, you know, your the the previous uh Yeah, and we're a little unique, right?
SPEAKER_04I mean, we don't we don't have our own police force, we don't have our own fire district, you know, we we don't control that, we just control the town. So but we do have 17 fire districts in Lee County.
SPEAKER_01We we do we we do have 18 fire districts in Lee County again. That's 18 duplications, right? And there's some things that just kind of duplicate, like why does that happen? And I'm gonna say like Tallahassee, we'll go to Tallahassee, where I'm up there three, four months last couple years, a lot longer because of special sessions, but you come out of the Capitol and it's tough because there's there's vagrancy out there and there's stuff, and they've got fifty million dollars that go to Leon County Police, Sheriff's Department, then they have $50 million go to Tallahassee PD. And they both are in the same place. Why is there a duplication? You know, why is there, you know, so there's some things there, and I think you know it comes down to yeah, but when it comes to government, you know, government employees, they do a good job, but some are just that. You know, there's some some some folks there are just kind of a little bit thicken on a few things, and I think it could be cut, you know. I don't want to see anybody lose a job, but if you got, you know, five positions are doing the same thing, right? You know, yeah, well, you know how that goes.
SPEAKER_04It's time to in our circumstance, it's a uh, you know, we we've got positions we can't fill, right? So, I mean it for us it's tough because it's Fort Myers Beach, it's hard to get people to live there, you know. Well, I think people are you know, that's one thing I think that's helping us get back. I've always said the houses are what is gonna build us back. The the people that build houses and invest there, yeah, you know, commercial is important. Realistic one part of it.
SPEAKER_01Fort Myers Beach is gonna be, I mean, it's great now. Like I love that Publix. I go to your Publix before I go to the Publix meeting.
SPEAKER_04It's funny, I think my wife likes going the other way.
SPEAKER_01You know, well, because I like going up there because it's just you know, I was like, I'm gonna help you help the guys out, see what's going on, you know, because it's usually dead this time of year. But you know, there's ah, what the hell? I mean, Publix is they're losing money being out there, but I figure like help them out, you know. Yeah um, but yeah, you like to see the houses getting built, and you like to see that, and that's and it's gonna be great in ten years. You know, it's a little bit longer than two weeks I originally said.
SPEAKER_04So that's gonna take it's it, you know, what remember Vicemar Adderholley said this will be a this is gonna be a paradise, a functioning paradise in two years. I I I kind of thought, well, I hope you're right. Margaritaville's really nice.
SPEAKER_00So that's the right thing.
SPEAKER_04But that was the catalyst, you know. You you talk about evolution and how you know when they first started to where they are now, they went from being nobody liked them, right? Now everybody's thankful that they were there because that building is what saved all the downtown.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, downtown got hit because it wasn't covered, but you look at the lighthouse behind it, you look at Nervous Nellys, you look at all those places behind there, the harbor house, all that kind of stuff, they would have been heavily damaged had that building been there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and remember it was all open and like it's still there. There's nothing wrong. That was ground zero.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was. I just remember getting to the end of the street and looking, you know, first looking that way and like, well, the building's still there, that's good, but all the you know, the breakaway walls were all blown out. But yeah, and not seeing a single building in Times Square, it was like Wow, oh boy. That tells you.
SPEAKER_01I knew it was bad, but I mean it was it was I remember the the first like I said going back, so you know, when when I ran the first time and you were you were in there too, it was different, right? We didn't really have the relationship, and it's which grew it grew a lot. It really grew a lot. Um, you know, your your city was kind of rough. It was rough. Uh Murphy, Mayor Murphy was horrible. You know, I don't I don't think he was good. I mean, disappearing for two weeks after a storm. I remember people screaming, like, what are we doing? You know, what's going on here? Uh but you were out there, and I remember talking to you like uh what is it, like a couple days before the storm, you know, just saying like, yeah, we text like, hey, you know, just let you know I'm here, whichever whatever you need, let's let's get together. And the next time I see Dan is we're bringing water over the bridge and beer. So but Dan, you went through some crazy stuff with that storm with Ian. You won't touch on that at all? I know it's kind of it's kind of a rough.
SPEAKER_04No, we were at we were at a friend's house actually at the last minute. Um we actually, you know, the towns put you up in a hotel off island, and we actually went to the I went to the hotel. We were we were planning on leaving, and so I go to the hotel and they said just let you know we're gonna lock the doors at this time and you're not gonna be able to get back out until after the storm. And I'm like, well, what we got two dogs. What what are we gonna do about the dogs? And they're like, it's too bad. I'm like, what how many other people have dogs here? So the dogs is so long story, I'm like, the dogs are just gonna do what they have to do inside the building? And they're like, yeah, because if you go out, we can't let you back in. So I went home and told Megan, and and at the time we still thought it was gonna go out and it was gonna go north, you know, it was it was we've heard about storm surge for 40 years. I remember we didn't mean because we went through the whole thing with her. I'm about barred the windows, did the whole nine yards, you know. We stayed for that too, but we were at an out three-story house, and you know, so we were prepared for that one. This one we had just we actually had to cut our my stepdaughter was getting married out in Colorado, and we actually had to come back a day early so that we could get ready. I remember talking, you're like, hey, I'm in Colorado. Yeah, so we had to we had to cut our our we had sorry honey, I gotta go, you know, type of thing. And so we we got back just in time, and uh we were gonna go. I came back and told Megan the story. She's like, no, she goes, we'll be fine, you know, which is weird. Normally Megan's like, we gotta go, right? She's like, we'll be fine. So we were gonna we were gonna stay in our single level house, which we're on the highest street on the island, so you know, Charlie water didn't even get in the house, so we thought, you know, it's and it's still going out, right? It's still going out. And then some friends of ours, they were gonna stay too, and they decided at the last minute, they're like, this is ticking too close, we're we're getting out of here. So he and his entire family went to the other coast, and uh he's he called me, he's like, get your ass, sorry, yeah, get your butt over, get your butt over to my house, you know. So I told Megan, so we grabbed what we could grab at the last minute, and you know, we're heading down a sterile boulevard, and water was already starting to so we got in there, and then once you were in there, you weren't getting out, right? We we all saw what happened, but I would I tried to get out, I'll never forget it. I was talking to then Chief Martin at the time, you know, because they couldn't come back over the bridge until the winds died down. And where we were at, I had a perfect view of the bridge, so I could see when they were gonna be coming over. And I tried to go out, but it was so slimy and mucky you couldn't really go anywhere.
SPEAKER_01It was crazy. So, like my house, same thing as the bay. Yeah, all it was and like it's just slimy from the bottom of the bay, stunk.
SPEAKER_04So I thought I'm gonna grab, I'm gonna grab the bike that was there that you know floated that, you know, floated back down, and I'll hop on that and it's not going anywhere with that, right? It's iced. So I I get on the phone with Chief Martin because I saw him coming over the bridge, and I said, I'll meet you down at the end of the street, which is where the phone still worked then.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, apparently. I mean, you're you lost a lot, right? So I said, I'll meet you at the end of the street, which is where the whale used to be. And uh he calls me. So I I start trying to make my way down there, and of course, there's boats and houses all over. I mean, it's not a straight walk down the street, right? Which normally takes you five minutes, took me 45 minutes to just to turn, and I had to go through people's backyards, get around the boats.
SPEAKER_01You're walking around, you're walking through people's lives. Yeah, it's crazy. It was, it was it was I still got the videos I see everyone's you know, like from when I walked to see you the next day, you're just like, Jesus, this is crazy.
SPEAKER_04So I I get down there and and uh Chief Martin says I can't remember exactly how he said it, but he said his along the lines that to call this a catastrophe would be a severe understatement. Yeah. And this is a guy that's been in the business for a long time, rescuing lives, and he had saw a lot of things. And you know, so it was, you know, I it I never wanted to see it, I never want to see. I mean, I saw things that people should probably never have to see. Uh, because I was there right away in the morning. I mean, yeah, we're trying to help people out. Just trying to do what you can and save who you can. And we were fortunate we did one, we did have one good story where we did get down to the because I was trying to make my way south, and Megan stayed back and uh you know, saw a couple of people that didn't make it, and by the time I got down close to where our house was, I got a call from a friend of mine. He's like, I've been able to locate all of my tenants except for one, and he's at this address is like the 5,500 block area. I said, Well, I'm just about there, so let me go see if I can and you're just walking.
SPEAKER_01I'm just walking, and it's because you can't drive, because people don't understand there's houses roofs right in the middle of the road, and there's just I mean it's just debris.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it's like a it looked like a war, it looked like a war zone that you've seen in movies, you know. Yeah, just a bomb went off. Just it was it was crap. And you know I talked to several of the USAR team guys that obviously have military backgrounds and they're like, We've never seen we've never seen like this. Yeah. So we get down there and I I call my buddy and I'm like, the house is gone. I mean, it's it's pushed back into another house. I mean, I think this is a house, but I'm not sure. And at the time another gentleman was coming from the other direction, so we started walking back in there, and we actually found the guy. He was in the house, so when the house started moving, the pilings, it came off the pilings, the water floated around the room. They just turned into a boat. Yeah, it just turned into a boat. So he he felt it, he said he felt it and he wasn't sure what was happening, he didn't know what to do, so he ran to the bedroom and grabbed a hold of his mattress. Well, as soon as he did that, the house came down on top of him and pinned him on the mattress. And the mattress was the only thing that kept his head above water as the storm kept surging. So we found him in kind of in the rafters of this building, still on his mattress. We were able to get him out. And at the time, Coast Guard was flying over and you had to like hail him, so we were trying to get him to the beach so they could lift him out of there. And he was scut up and he was, you know, dehydrated, obviously. But he but he he survived and he had a good spirit about him for you know so it was that was that was kind of a never heard that story, that's crazy. Yeah, so he he got picked up on the beach and he was able to and he had been a resident on the island for over 20 years, and he's like, I got I I'm not sticking around, I gotta go. So yeah, he I wish I could remember his name, but yeah, there's so many stories that come out of that. And then, you know, another story, not to keep you you you know, where we were at, we were at the mooring field and we could see this mooring field behind us, and one of the boats who's actually uh Grandi is his name, him and his dad were on this boat, and we knew they were right behind us. It was a decent sized boat, 60, 65 foot hatters. They stayed on that damn thing, probably. They might have had. So all of a sudden I I hear an a diesel engine start up, and at this time it hadn't switched and started coming in on shore, it was coming up the back bay. So the waves are six, eight feet, and they're just you could see these people out there just getting hammered. Well, uh he busted away from the mooring ball, and at the time the water was just coming up over the seawalls and it was coming up to the house. So he's he was able to get one of his two engines running. And he turns, so I'm videoing this whole thing, right? So he turns, and had I been the captain, I'd have drove that boat right up on shore, climbed up on the balcony, and whatever, because at the at that time you knew it was gonna be bad, right? Yeah, uh, but they were somehow so we could see him kind of go around the bay back there, and they just kind of disappeared back by the Key West Express, and we never saw them again. They ended up finding them, you know, 300 yards of the mangroves after the storm. But the boat behind it was a sailboat, and we're just watching this thing keel over, and it's just just getting hammered, and there's nothing you can do about it. And you know, you can't go outside, and all the water's two or three feet deep, and you just there's nothing you can do except for watching. And you could see there were people on the boat because you could see the television, they were trying to keep, you know. All of a sudden this big wave came and the boat was gone. Never saw the boat again. And I thought, those people are gone until NBC did that special. They did a special, and the people that were on that boat were in that special. Oh, really? They actually made it to the back, they made it to Hurricane Bay and were safe.
SPEAKER_01They made a big floated in the mangrove.
SPEAKER_04They just they yeah, they they somehow made it back. They were able to get their little motor running, they were able to get back there. But I thought this whole entire time that they were they were gone, and they I'm like, that's the boat.
SPEAKER_01It's great. Yeah, well, it's crazy, like you know, down in Monroe County, and they talk about it as they take the boats and you go into these mangrove islands, yeah, and they actually anchor them in there, and what happens that water comes up, and mangrove actually is very soft, so the boats actually bounce around in there. But I mean, I'm not that's something scary that I wouldn't want to deal with.
SPEAKER_04I'm not getting on a boat, no, no.
SPEAKER_01No, I know the Key West Express, they went up the river, they went up the Calusahatchie, and they went all the way to I think it was 31 to that first lock or whatever, and they just rode it out in the in the river. Yeah, they just rode it out in the river, just they just kept it in gear and just pushing this way. Can you imagine that? Like fighting that and stuff. At that point, you're committed. What can you do? Yeah, I mean, because usually all the shrimp boats leave, right? And that was the thing. Why did all these shrimp boats not leave? Well, the storm kind of looped in. I mean, yeah, it wasn't it doesn't it takes that right hand turn and you just remember watching the squiggle thing, yeah. We're we're just oh boy, you know. I mean, it was nuts, and you know, we had Irma before. And it was like, oh, yeah, this wasn't bad, but we didn't know. Like we had no power. Like, so I was at my parents' house that was in Grand Dezus. They live over in Estero and had a satellite dish. So I had I remember after Irma, I was watching uh, you know, Sunday Night Football or whatever it was. Like it was no big deal. You know, there's some water, okay, yeah, we'll make it. Yeah, we watched until halftime until the power went up. Yeah, you know, and so we we actually kept power over there. This time it was all they had Comcast, so then I'm like listening uh, and then there was nothing. So there was nothing. So then I was listening to the radio, and Wink Jake was on, and all of a sudden Wink went dark. I was like, oh it just went dark and it was bat, right? So then I switched over to I can't remember 969 or one of the other stations. They had somebody on there, and they were talking, and they're like talking, and it it really we weren't getting that much out of it. Like he's like, Oh yeah, okay, just you know, your thing, Ian. I remember talking to the sheriff, uh, to the um the sh the fire chief, Greg DeWitt, and he's like, Hey, everything looks good so far, that's around three or four o'clock. But then the water came. You know, so I remember driving down here, I had my girlfriend with me, we were driving down, and we went down and we couldn't get past the 7-Eleven because the water was still up. And I could see boats in the middle of the road down here. And I was like, ooh, this is not good. So then I you know, I took her back because she did not want to check it out, you know. So then I came back about an hour later, and the eeriest thing is I remember I was here, I had a spotlight, and I looked down from the bridge because I couldn't get down here to the property. I did get down to the property, but all that was left is wherever we put the cinder blocks for the boats.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_01So all there was was four cinder blocks where the boats were supposed to be, because we had fifty boats right here. And they all ended up in the bay. So you see the Ian water line right here. I mean, so you're talking the water was right here. Um so I mean everything just came right through here and just floated and everything was across.
SPEAKER_04Did any of the boats make it?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, we only lost uh, I think nine, twelve of the boats that because what happened was we had two in the middle of that island, Dan. Like they just floated and they sat that island in there. And the thing is too, is they all went over in that corner. So we were protected, I think, from the south by the wind. Yeah, it wasn't bad, but you can see there's dents in the roof over in the house, and that's when the boats hitting. Banging off it. Hanging off the that because the boats are that high, they're banging off the roof right up there. You can see that. So like I actually have little signs I'm gonna put up when you open the ship store that shows in waterline and boat damage, you know, just to say that's where boats are actually banging off that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, our house, our house, our neighbor, if you're looking at the canal from our house, he had about a 36-foot sailboat tied up to his dock on the back because we had a deeper canal there. And the water line in our house was about my eye level. So in hindsight, if we would have stayed there, would we have survived? Yeah, we would have been fine. We would have been on the table, right? With about that much room to spare. But we you know, we would have made it, but it would have been a really scary thing. But the way that the water came, because our street is the only street that faces east and west. So the water came straight across, and we're up higher, so the house is across. It was like a three-foot drop-off. So it that almost acted like a mitigation wall for our house because all of our windows survived, the doors survived. You know, we're just a single-level house. Yeah, it just kind of disappeared. Concrete house. Yeah, but you know, inside the house it was like a washing machine. Everything just I think the garage door was the only thing that got buckled in, and that's because something hit it. But Megan's Jeep in there, there was fish in it, you know, it was gone. But the uh the houseboat or the the sailboat from our neighbors was on the roof of the house directly behind us that's got a chimney, and it was leaning up against a chimney on the roof of the house behind us. Wow. So inside the water was only the water line, but I think that's what people don't realize is that you know, you see a water line inside a house, you're like, Well, it wasn't that bad. Yeah, but the water was over the top of the house, only so much water made it in and and goes out, you know.
SPEAKER_01Like our neighbor here, he was like he left us a voicemail. He's like, I'm on the table, and your boats are going across the bay. Because he's like, you know, because they're nervous. Like at my house, I live around a corner, and the damn bunnies were crawl crawling up the damn uh steps on the house because I have to build out to get out of the water. And it I have one of those old Florida, you know, Fort Myers Beach houses, right? You know, where they're just sitting on pilings, right? There's a couple bolts, but they're not meant to look at it. If that water comes up, that pressure just buoyancy just pulls that right off. Like I wherever my house sagged, there was water. So I mean I got real lucky because there was homes behind me. Down the street, there was some undeveloped land, and they got wave action. Like if I got a wave action, my house would have been gone. Yeah. It would have been across the street.
SPEAKER_04Well, I was helping a friend, a house similar to like yours, it's just up on pilings right on Benity Beach Road here, or on uh on uh right on the right on the water, right? Just an old Florida house amongst all the big houses there. And he and his wife wanted to save it. They bought two, they bought one across the road here, and then they bought one over there. But they wanted to save it because it was a nice little three-bedroom, two-bath, you know, cottage type house up on stilt. So we renovated the whole inside of it. I mean, everything was brand new. Two weeks from handing them a key, and Ian hit. Oh, he probably had I bet he had a quarter of a million dollars in the renovations, 300 grand into renovations on that house. The pilings weren't even there. That's the pilings were gone. That's crazy. The entire house was in. We found some of the flooring, you know, in the mangroves across from, but you know, it scoured his property so that but not even the pilings were there. It was I mean, it was gone.
SPEAKER_01So I think Bonita really took a lot of debris. Like we had a bigger debris fit, like Fort Myers Beach, like it didn't make it all the way through. Yeah, you know, and you had the boats over there, but like in Benita, it just like there the North Benita, South Fort Myers, the crap just got I mean, it was everywhere. It was just everywhere. It just the stuff just blew through.
SPEAKER_04How far that storm went inland was was shocking. I mean, that was I guess you know what 15 feet of storm surge really looks like now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean the water went all the way to 7-Eleven. You can always hide from the wind, but you can't run from the water. That's the problem. You know, that's that's where it's just tough, you know. I mean, now we always say I remember talking to Marty Herity on Santa Bell, and he's like, Oh yeah, we're leaving, we're leaving. I mean, yeah, because I mean that's important because it was bad. Yeah, you know, it's it's horrible. I remember going out there and running out there to see you, and uh that was the best beer in a long time. My buddy Dan Daly came over from the east coast.
SPEAKER_04You heard that sorry, Jake? So he calls me up, he's like, What do you need? I'm like, Well, we need some more water, and I could really go for a cold beer. And he became it was a mix ultra if I was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a mix ultra, yeah, it was the best mech ultra ever.
SPEAKER_01So we go to the brid the north south. We were at the north end right there at the at the bridge, right? Because this bridge you couldn't get through. And I was there with uh two other representatives, and it was like a checkpoint, and they're like, Oh, Adam's gonna try to talk. So I talked myself over the bridge on the state rep, you know. I'm talking to the mayor, you know, this was Councilman Mallers, I'm trying to give him some water, some stuff over there. Okay, you're good. And they're like, how the you know, I was like, either going to jail or we're going over the bridge. We went over the bridge, yeah. Uh we made it over, found you, right? And I mean, we we unloaded some water and stuff like that, but yeah, it was at the time you couldn't get past the whale. That was as far south as we could drive. It was yeah. I was I remember just sitting in the back of our truck having a the cultra, which was that was a damn good beer. It was a good beer. That was a damn good beer.
SPEAKER_04That was then it was back to work. I mean, it was literally like a yeah. No, you you did a great that was late in the afternoon, too. I mean, that was that was what two days after? Yeah, I mean, well, so that'd have been I mean, we didn't probably get a shower I'd say two weeks after the storm. I think what people don't remember well you know the all the mangroves are dead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's why the because that was a thing, like with this storm we had so much salt, but we didn't have any rain. There was not that drench. Usually in a hurricane, you get a lot of rain. So this all this that's why you see a lot of dead mangroves out here is because that salt water came up, right? And it didn't get rinsed off.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it it killed a lot of the trees out here. A lot of the mangroves. I mean, they're they're resistant, but yeah, everything was just salted up.
SPEAKER_04Well, that you know, people like I've never ran from a storm before. It's not if you're lucky enough to survive the wind and the flood, it's what happens after. It's what happens after. It's the two weeks without a shower, not having any clothes to change into.
SPEAKER_01You don't need you don't need hot water, you need cold water.
SPEAKER_04You just need a water in general, and there was a window shaker for them to sleep at night. If you can get power anywhere, right? I mean little genre. Yeah, you you're just looking for gas. I mean, we had just before the storm, we had bought one of those little jackeries, you know, those and that saved us. I mean, if it wasn't for that, we would have never had any opportunity.
SPEAKER_01The amount of stuff that you did, Dan, for Fort Myers Beach, um, best mayor ever. Hands down, keep doing what you're doing, man. You're doing a great job. I mean, just with just takes a village. The amount of the amount of stuff that you guys did, the Turkensons, your partners, everybody that helped out with what you did over there at the uh, what was it, the beach? I can't remember what the what did you guys used to call that commissary that you had for food? Oh, Buttonwood. Yeah, it was Buttonwood, yeah. But FMB strong, yeah. Yeah, you guys just did a lot of stuff, and that was great. I appreciate it, man.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was a hub for everybody that came down. You were there, you oh yeah, yeah. Julie there all the time. Yeah, you were gonna be able to do it. Donald's was there helping unload trucks. I mean it was um it was nice that that building survived. You know, it was a 3,500 square foot, and the that building, the electricity was elevated. So we were one of the first people to get air conditioning back. So it was a place people could come and cool off, get some you know, supplies, some food, and it you know, it served its purpose for about three years, and hopefully it never has to be open again.
SPEAKER_01We're we're done for hurricanes, we're gonna work on everyone.
SPEAKER_04Checking out of the hurricane of the month club.
SPEAKER_01Use your come join the boat club. Yes, exactly. We're done for a while. Hopefully, we're good. We're we're over it. I'm done. I don't I don't want any more storms. Jake was on top of the counter with his cat. You know, uh, not happening. Uh, but uh Mayor Allers, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Thanks for that was this was quick. This was quick. It went fast. It went fast, we're having fun. Uh, folks, thanks for tuning in. Uh, we're on every Saturday morning on 925 from 6 to 7. Obviously, we have the podcast, Carney to Congress Podcast. You can look up CarneyCongress.com, uh, presented by Bay Water Exclusive Boat Club, the only family owner operated boat club in Southwest Florida. Come down, check us out. Give us a call, 239-495-0455. Dan, why don't you plug your business? Because we got to make money because politics doesn't pay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, that's true. I got two. I got Island Carts FMB, that's our rental business that we put provides.
SPEAKER_01And he has he's got great golf carts because I've used them up in Captiva, you deliver them. Sneakers and all that. Yeah, all that good.
SPEAKER_04We got everything everything you need. They're street legal, we deliver anywhere in Southwest Florida. And then we just started about a year and a half ago. The cart shack is where we actually sell golf carts. So if you're in the market for golf carts, uh give me a call, two three nine two zero six one two two zero. Okay, yeah. Or go to the cart shack.com where you are.
SPEAKER_01And I've gotten parts from my golf cart for it. So thank you. Folks, thank you very much. We'll see you next week. Bay Water Exclusive Boat Club, the exclusive club of Southwest, Florida.