Arrest made during rowdy public comment at Cape Coral City Council meeting

A person was arrested during the public comment section of the Cape Coral City Council’s meeting and another was kicked out.

Public comment was getting rowdy and out of hand, Wednesday afternoon.

“Is there anyone here with more than three functioning brain cells that thinks that’s a good idea?” said one commenter.

During a break in the meeting, a person was taken away by Cape Coral police.

The man arrested had been kicked out of a Cape Coral City Council meeting in October and wasn’t allowed back until the council addressed it, which they had planned to do Wednesday.

Afterward, the mayor of Cape Coral stepped in and presented a motion that would end public comment. The motion failed to pass, so public comment resumed.

One man shouted an expletive to the mayor and was removed.

Discord was struck over three main issues:

• The council looking to approve a stipend that would give each member and the mayor thousands of extra dollars each month
• District 4 voters were unable to have a say in choosing their own representative
• Changes to Jaycee Park

When it came time for candidates for the District 4 position to give their presentations, one candidate appeared to bow out of the race because of what she saw.

After nearly four hours, the council members chose to appoint Richard Carr as the next District 4 representative. Carr has a background in law enforcement.

WINK News asked Carr about what he saw at the meeting and how he planned to address the fired up people of Cape Coral after the meeting.

“These types of situations happen. I’ve got 30 years of experience, 25 of which was in law enforcement, so I’ve seen that reaction to various issues over my time,” he said. “It’s unfortunate. You do everything you can to avoid it because we’re here to serve the public as best we can. I’ll do everything I can to help alleviate that. Will I stop that from ever happening again? I doubt it because I don’t think any one person can do that. I can tell you that I am committed to trying to gain trust of those folks that were here as well as everybody else in this city.”