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For several years now the city has been working on a plan to try and place all of the remaining high voltage overhead electric wires on Marco Island underground. North Collier Boulevard, from Winterberry to the bridge, is finished and is an astonishing success of beauty and appearance. The city plans for the next phase was to underground the side streets and has been working with LCEC to reduce costs. A 4.6 mile trial area in the Barbados area had been selected to determine real costs.

On Oct. 6 the City Council will most probably terminate the expansion of the underground program. I just thought it would be beneficial to remind our community and our leaders why the underground program was started. This way, hopefully they can make a decision based on facts, based on what is good for the entire Island, and not on political pressures or misleading statements.

The undergrounding was done for three reasons.

Improving the appearance of our island

Nothing beautifies an area more than getting rid of the unsightly overhead wires, poles and equipment. In addition, overhead wires require extensive and unsightly cutting of trees to provide safe clearance.

Almost every new development in Florida and the United States in recent years has gone underground. There is no argument that if Marco was developed today all wires would be underground. Developers, homeowners and buyers throughout the country have concluded that eliminating overhead wires significantly improves property values. The city’s plan to remove about two-thirds of the overhead wires on Marco Island was a huge step forward in making us look like the paradise we really are.

Improving safety

This is an area where I have personally seen the tragedy of overhead wires. People are electrocuted when they touch our overhead wires or when wires fall to the ground and are touched or when trees contact wires.

In the past year and a half alone three people on Marco Island have been electrocuted when making contact with high voltage overhead wires. Two of them have been on my street. The last one occurred earlier this month when a person I know very well was fatally electrocuted. He was a 34-year-old father of two, and was killed while doing the routine task of trimming trees. Are we waiting for a wire to fall to the ground and electrocute some of our children before we decide to move ahead? What value do we place on life in our island?

Improving major storm performance

By removing about two-thirds of our overhead wires we reduce the number of wires that can come down during a major storm and reduce the time we are without electricity. We reduce extended outages due to wind, salt contamination and lightning.

I, for one, see the misery people are experiencing in Texas and Louisiana and don’t want to be without electricity for up to a month and have to deal with spoiling food, alternate living quarters and interior mold formation. I grew up in an island and remember being without power for weeks and months after the devastation inflicted by a hurricane that destroyed the electrical lines throughout our island.

Marco Island’s underground conversion plan was considered very forward thinking and visionary by many other municipalities in Florida. Towns on the east coast have begun to eliminate overhead wires, and Naples and 25 other municipalities are working on a plan with Florida Power and Light to place overhead wires underground. Everyone knows that the future, especially along Florida’s coast, is to eliminate overhead wires.

The city’s plans call for the installation of underground cables using modern directional boring techniques that have minimal disturbance, open trenching or driveway disruption. The city has already paid $400,000 for the design of this next phase of undergrounding and residents have paid millions with the future expectation of someday seeing their areas improved by eliminating the unsightly and dangerous overhead high voltage wires.

I would agree that the present franchise fee of 5 percent of our electric bill may be too much in that electric rates have increased almost 40 percent since the 5 percent fee was enacted. As such, I would suggest that the city reduce this fee to about 3.5 percent to reflect the overall increase in electric costs. On average, this will amount to about $8 per month for the average residence. This seems like a good “insurance premium” for the benefits realized from this program.

Before the city began the undergrounding program it paid close attention to the many MICA surveys in which the majority of the thousands of people in our community who responded supported the underground program, even if it meant paying a 5 percent fee on their electric bills.

Based on the comments I heard from council the other night, it appears that the expansion of the underground program will end on Oct. 6. It will end without even testing a small area to determine the real costs of placing overhead wires underground. I just thought people should know what we are giving up and why.