Bonita Springs voters authorised up to thirty five million dollars of borrowing against their own property tax base for the rail trail, and the people assembling the sixty million dollar corridor purchase now say the last piece of the money is in place and they intend to close in October

Bonita Springs voters approved the city's rail trail bond question in Tuesday's primary by better than two to one.

The Lee County Supervisor of Elections board, which this desk read directly, records the measure as Bonita Estero Rail Trail (BERT) General Obligation Bonds with all eight participating precincts reporting. Yes took 8,968 votes, 68.23 percent. No took 4,175, 31.77 percent. There were 13,143 votes cast on the question. Countywide the board shows 141,250 ballots cast against 475,217 registered voters, a turnout of 29.72 percent, with all 99 precincts and all three vote types completely reported. The page is headed election night reporting and the result is not certified.

What the ballot authorised is borrowing. The city's notice of the referendum, read by this desk before the election, put the question as whether Bonita Springs may finance the acquisition and construction of the Bonita Estero Rail Trail and build a multi use trail for runners, walkers and cyclists by issuing general obligation bonds not exceeding thirty five million dollars in principal, maturing within thirty years of issuance, with interest not exceeding the maximum legal rate, and payable from ad valorem property taxes.

The margin held across every way of voting. On this desk's own arithmetic against the board's columns, yes took 69.66 percent on election day, 63.02 percent in early voting and 69.21 percent by mail. Mail was also the dominant channel, 8,152 of the 13,143 votes on the measure, or 62.03 percent.

Everything past the count comes from WINK News, whose reporter Haley Jacobs spoke to the people running the purchase, and it is credited to them rather than asserted here.

Mayor Mike Gibson told WINK that the referendum gives the city the authority to borrow through the bond, and that environmental reviews and other due diligence still have to be completed before the city moves ahead with the purchase. On the size of the margin he was blunt.

"as close to a mandate as we're going to get."

Douglas Hattaway, Southeast Region Conservation Director for the Trust for Public Land, described the work still outstanding as appraisals, title work, a boundary survey and an environmental assessment, several of which are already done. He put the remaining due diligence as finishing by the end of September and the current goal as closing on the property in October. He gave the purchase price for the larger corridor as sixty million dollars, said Collier County has already committed Conservation Collier funding for its portion and that the Village of Estero has committed to buying its share while still choosing a funding source, and said of Tuesday's vote that the referendum "actually fills the last piece of funding necessary for the acquisition of and some construction funding" for the project.

The corridor is about 11.4 miles of unused railroad linking Bonita Springs, Estero and Collier County, with roughly 5.8 miles of it inside Bonita Springs. After a closing, WINK reports, the railroad company will have up to two years to remove the tracks, and Gibson said the city plans to use that time on engineering and design so construction can begin quickly once they are gone.

Deb Orton, president and co-founder of Friends of BERT, told the station the group formed in 2022 and has grown to about 4,500 members, and that supporters watching returns realised early that the question was passing.

"We realized, goodness, we're at over two to one in terms of 68% of the voters voted yes for BERT."

For a homeowner in Bonita Springs the useful summary is short. The city may now borrow up to thirty five million dollars against the property tax base, over as long as thirty years. It has not borrowed it yet, it does not own the land yet, and what any individual bill looks like depends on how much of that ceiling the city actually issues and against what taxable value. Those numbers do not exist yet, and none is invented here.