Cape Coral, Florida, is a city of over 150,000 people in Lee County. Along with its nearby neighbor, Ft. Myers, it is part of a multi-city region numbering over half a million. Tourist pamphlets ballyhoo Cape Coral’s network of canals, and I’ve got to admit, it looks like quite a place to visit.

But really, the only substantial reason I am interested in traveling there is to meet Sal Grosso.

I’ve spoken to him on the phone. And I’ve read a few of his columns for the local paper. But everything I learn about the man makes me want to meet him in the flesh. (Too bad Florida is not on my near-term itinerary.)

What makes Sal Grosso the man to meet? He’s a crusader. For justice. For government transparency. For accountability, and balanced budgets, and low taxes.

And, in the city of Cape Coral, he has met an imposing enemy, the city’s political establishment.

But Sal is not one to be bullied or pushed around. He had a successful career in the telephony business, being responsible for “call completion” in a very large network encompassing all of New York State. If something went wrong regarding the phone system, he was the man to fix it. When he moved to Florida to retire, he didn’t take up snorkeling or golf. He took up something more along the lines he was used to: problematic systems.

So he got involved investigating local governance and its accounting methods. He started in with the municipal water system. He discovered that it couldn’t keep track of millions of gallons of water per day. Sal plunged in (so to speak).

After some of his initial reports hit the local paper, the head of the water district hired him for one dollar per year to investigate further. Sal gladly accepted, and continued his research . . . and the publishing of his findings. When the facts came to light, the mayor of Cape Coral was incensed. According to Sal, it wasn’t long before the man at the water bureau who had hired him was pressured to fire him . . . giving him his dollar for services rendered.

Unfortunately, he was only halfway into the investigation. He had uncovered quite a mess. He had discovered that some prominent, large-usage businesses were being billed for only the basic water charge, not for actual usage. This meant that these businesses were getting a huge freebie, paid for by fully paying water customers.

Understandably, Sal suspected that this was the way someone in government wanted it to be.

Even after making some reforms, the water department continued to be unable to keep track of what it distributed. The amount of water unaccounted for in the city’s billings remained over 10 percent.

Some might say, “Close enough for government work,” but if that’s the case, it shouldn’t be government work, should it?

Sal wasn’t merely up to his knees in water problems. He also stepped into the city’s books in general. He quickly discovered a peculiar accounting anomaly. The city had reserves, a fact that city officials seemed not to want the public to know. And it kept changing budgets, and asking for ever-new taxes and fees, without mentioning (once again, strategically) the money it actually had in the bank. In 2007, that reserve (fund balance) came to $210 million . . . which was more than the annual budget of just a few years prior.

Cape Coral was a rich town, always pretending to be poor.

And it spent money like the Prodigal Son.

Sal took his concerns to city officials. They were uninterested in looking at his findings, to say the least. He then took his information to the state attorney’s office. There he was told they simply didn’t have the manpower to look into Cape Coral government finances.

But Sal didn’t give up. Next stop was the office of the Auditor General, which is tasked to audit every agency of the state government. Sal was pleased to learn that this office does what he calls “a three-legged audit,” covering financials, worker performance, and legal compliance. Though the office is not set up to audit all the local governments, it does audit a select group of subsidiary governments each year.

So Sal made his pitch to the State Legislative committee in charge of the office, giving each member a red binder detailing his findings. Please, he asked, audit Cape Coral.

Understandably, there were repercussions. Local state House and Senate reps got involved, and they were all very concerned that someone was questioning the ethics and legality of government. Pressure was brought to bear. Sal’s name was dragged through the mud (“he’s a nut”), and Sal got his answer: “No.” Continued...