BocaBeacon.comThe Boca Beacon is Boca Grande's weekly community newspaper.
COMMENTARY: Absentee ballot disaster demands a new election so all the votes are counted. This time.
BY GARY DUTERY – First there were the hanging chads. Now this. Has screwing up elections become some kind of organized team sport here in Florida?
This year, more than 400 registered voters in Boca Grande asked Lee County to send them ballots for the Tuesday, Aug. 24 election. For Boca Grande, that’s a big number. [...]
Bridge’s engineer says speed bumps are good
The Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority’s bridges are not being endangered by the installation of speed bumps, as was alleged recently in the Boca Beacon (July 30, 2010). There are sound engineering reasons for KCA’s recommendations to GIBA to install speed bumps as a means to slow traffic down to 20 mph on the aging and [...]
Yes, BocaBeacon.com is changing
About two weeks ago we changed the look of BocaBeacon.com. Not that there was all that much wrong with the old look. In fact, the new site was posted just one month after BocaBeacon.com was recognized by the Florida Press Association as the top weekly newspaper site in our circulation category. We have won this [...]
Engineer says speed bumps damaging bridge
David Taylor doesn’t like the speed bumps that flank the island’s three bridges. Further, Taylor – a Boca Grande resident who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering and has worked in the field for more than 30 years – says the bumps are doing more harm than good.
EcoWatch: Island’s sea turtles need more protection
BY DELORES SAVAS – Since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists have been attempting to monitor the activities of sea turtles. Many fear this species will suffer a major decline in numbers due to the oil blowout.
EcoWatch: We need to end our addiction to oil
BY DELORES SAVAS – As residents of the Gulf coast watch and wait to see if the massive Gulf oil leak will be contained many stories have been written about the over dependency we all have on oil. While BP has been the guy wearing the black hat in one of the worst oil [...]
EcoWatch: Florida helping birds survive spill
By DELORES SAVAS – Birds that were once oiled soaked and doomed to die in the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout were rescued from oil soiled beaches in Louisiana, Alabama and other areas. The birds were rehabilitated and sent to sunny Florida for a second chance at life.
EcoWatch: An interview with Philippe Cousteau
BY DELORES SAVAS – This week Philippe Cousteau, ecologist, environmentalist, and the grandson of the famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, talked to me about the catastrophic oil leak in Louisiana.
Cousteau was one of the first divers to enter the oiled waters of the Gulf. He speaks of what he observed along with other comments on the [...]
COMMENTARY: GIBA looking for someone to blame. And it’s us!
The badelynge of political lame ducks sat wing to wing in the tiny conference room in the big building at the north tip of the Boca Grande Causeway on Tuesday, aiming to stitch blame to somebody’s hide for what ails the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority and its board.
County: Island Act doesn’t ban political yard signs
With 13 Boca Grande residents on the November 2 ballot for the four open Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority board seats, the island is about to get its first taste of local election “politicking.”
And while nobody is expecting candidates to run attack ads or hold Tea Party-style rallies outside the Temp, an election is an election. [...]
BP ‘mall cops’ seek to control the message
BY GARY DUTERY – The video shows BP “Security” confronting a televison news crew on a public beach. This isn’t an isolated incident. It appears to be part of BP’s corporate agenda, an agenda more focused on controlling the message rather than controlling the impact of the spill.
Should oil come ashore in Southwest Florida, it [...]
COMMENTARY: Yes, Boca Grande, it’s World Cup time again
BY GARY DUTERY – The World Cup gets under way today (Friday) in South Africa. You know, the World Cup? Soccer? The most popular sport on the planet? The game where you kick the ball rather than slap it with a bat or tote it around like an oblong loaf of Wonder Bread? Soccer?
COMMENTARY: Was oil spill class worth it?
BY MARCY SHORTUSE – About 20 people attended a class on Monday at the fire station. The meeting was a four-hour course given by the Ostego Bay Foundation out of Fort Myers and was supposed to be about oil spill response.
Letters to the editor
Lee County should help with bike path
To the editor,
Congratulations to the Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association and thank you to those who have voluntarily funded the north bike path renovation (many of whom live on the south end of the island).
