The Lee Trust for Historic Preservation holds a rally Saturday morning to try to save Exhibition Hall and its public waterfront in downtown Fort Myers from private development. The famous Exhibition Hall was once the most versatile multi-use facility in town but hurricanes severely damaged it and it's now condemned. City officials may vote to bulldoze the historic structure to let a developer build luxury private residences and a hotel on the site.

WCI Communities hopes to buy more than five acres of city-owned land, which includes the Hall and one of the few remaining public boat ramps along the Caloosahatchee River. That has Lee Trust for Historic Preservation president Bill Grace fighting the plan to save the waterfront.

“When that goes there won’t be much at all. The Burough’s Home – they’ve got about 150 feet there. Ofcourse they’re talking about selling the Buroughs’ Home too. But they seem to be giving away spaces for private buildings to go up. We feel like all good planner encourage communities to retain their waterfront and use that as a basis for their redevelopment projects.”

Grace says Exhibition Hall and its waterfront should be incorporated into the Andres Duany redevelopment master plan – a plan the city paid the Miami-based town planner 275,000 dollars to develop.
The City Council addresses the choice at a May 22 workshop.

If Fort Myers city officials can work out a deal with Bonita-Springs based WCI Communities before or during a workshop on May 22, Exhibition Hall likely will be torn down. Residences, maybe a hotel and entertainment spots will go up in its place –to attract more people to downtown.

But the Lee Trust for Historic Preservation is trying to prevent that from happening to the 1950’s era hall where Elvis Presley and Milton Berle once sang. Though Hurricane Charley caused damage, left mold and asbestos and got the building condemned, the Trust’s president Bill Grace says it’s still worth saving.

“If you look at the Secretary of the Interior’s standards it meets two of them – it’s associated with people of national and local prominences and it’s architecturally significant. The Lee Trust commissioned an engineering study of the structure and it was found to be in good to excellent shape.”
The Trust is also adamant about saving the public waterfront adjacent to Exhibition Hall – since it’s one of two remaining public marinas along the Caloosahatchee in Fort Myers. The group holds a rally at the hall Saturday morning from 9 to 10 to let officials know the city’s past is important to its future.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee met yesterday to decide whether Dirk Kempthorne should be confirmed as the next Secretary of the Interior. President Bush chose the Republican Idaho Governor to succeed outgoing secretary Gale Norton. But Florida’s Senators are concerned Kempthorne will move ahead with a plan that could open up the eastern gulf to off-shore drilling. From Capitol Hill, Terry Gildea reports.

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Every week, more than three-thousand people move to Florida. Those new residents bring cars--but also a need for housing and more roads. As Florida leaders cope with the population boom, environmental experts struggle to try to limit the impacts on wildlife. One innovative project in Collier County may help. W-G-C-U’s Russell Lewis has more.

The dredging of muck from Lake Trafford in Immokalee is 80 percent complete and residents are reporting a change in the lake’s water quality. Lake Trafford is the largest lake south of Lake Okeechobee. It’s three miles west of Immokalee. Workers have been on-site around-the-clock since last October removing muck build-up from the lake’s bottom. The state of the art computerized dredging system extracts sediment and pumps it through a one-mile long pipe to settling ponds north of the lake. The ponds help cleanse the water before it is returned to the lake, says the South Florida water management district’s Randy Smith.

“So what we’re seeing now is much better water quality I mean visually you can see that the water quality is more clear than when it started. I think you’ll see plant life come back. Just because of the water clarity sunlight’s going to be able to reach the bottom to get plant life started and we know there’s still seed life in the bottom.”

The South Florida Water Management District aims to remove approximately 4 million cubic yards of muck build-up – enough to fill 222,222 dump trucks. Crews are pumping 13,000 gallons of the sediment and water out of the 1400-acre lake every minute. The project will cost more than ten million dollars.

The restoration of Lake Trafford is nearly complete. Over the years, accumulation of thick organic sediment has hurt water quality and taken natural aquatic habitat from the largest lake south of Lake Okeechobee.

The muck ranges from 9 inches to 9 feet in thickness in some parts of the lake. The water is already visibly improved now that there is less organic material inhibiting plant life. The South Florida Water Management District’s Randy Smith says vegetation will also be replanted to restore the lake to a thriving, healthy ecosystem.

“It will impact the fish population, the plant population, bird life around it – the fauna. It will be a true restoration and rehabilitation of Lake Trafford.”

The Lake Trafford project is part of Everglades restoration. During wet periods the lake periodically overflows its banks providing freshwater as the heart of the Corkscrew Swamp ecosystem

The lake historically has been a hot spot for fishing, boating and other activities. The project is supposed to be finished in November.

More than a million immigrants demonstrated across the country Monday in attempt to show their importance to the nation’s economy. At a counter demonstration in Fort Myers, protesters held signs calling for illegal immigrants to go home. One attendee said foreigners were taking entry-level jobs from teenagers. But Barbara Hartman with Lee County Career and Service Center says there are plenty of jobs for everyone.

“Employers are waiting for students to get out of school to help them run their business – they are relying on the students to help expanding and keep what they do have going. it will help bridge the gap for the labor shortage for the summer.”

Hartman says an unemployment rate of 3 percent is considered full employment – the number in Lee is about two percent – the lowest it’s been in many years. Most employers looking for teen workers are in retail and customer service.




More than a million immigrants skipped work and boycotted shops and restaurants Monday to show their importance to the nation’s economy. There were also counter demonstrations. At one such rally in Fort Myers, people held signs calling for illegal immigrants to go home. Some said undocumented workers take jobs away from legal residents and even make it difficult for teens to find employment.

It’s certainly not the case in Lee County – which has an unemployment rate of 2 percent and is the fastest growing area in Florida. Beth Barger is with the Career and Service Center of Southwest Florida. She says 14 and 15 year olds looking for jobs are somewhat limited by child labor laws – but once they turn sixteen they have many options.

“ there are so many new companies moving into the area and depending on what they’ve done and what they put together as their own package – have they volunteered in school – those kinds things – they just need to showcase their skills to the employer to show that they have worked in public or they’ve done certain things so that they can get the job”

Barger says some movie theaters pay teens 9 dollars and 25 cents an hour. She says Target has excellent employment programs for teens – including college tuition reimbursement. And she says Publix, the state’s largest private employer, hires baggers as young as age 15.

As thousands of immigrants across Florida rallied for immigration reform yesterday - Centennnial Park in Ft. Myers was the site of a rally against illegal immigration. An estimated 3 to 4 hundred people attended. WGCU’s Valerie Alker reports.

Type “Army Corps of Engineers” followed by “Critics” into an Internet search engine and thousands of links pop up. Much of the criticism is aimed at the failure of the levee system, which led to the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And the way the Corps manages Lake Okeechobee has also attracted a lot of criticism. So what’s it like to work for the Army Corps? W-G-C-U’s Valerie Alker reports.