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When you visit the Web sites of the City of Marco Island or the Collier County Clerk of Courts, you’ll see an important message on the home page. It reads:

“Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public records request, do not send e-mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.”

In other words, if you send your council member or staff person a message via e-mail, any resident can file a request and get a copy of that e-mail.

And, as Marco Council member Chuck Kiester knows all too well, it is against the law to destroy or erase such e-mails.

Okay, that is what it is. But what if you write a letter to someone in city or county government and send it via the U.S. Postal Service? (Remember that old-fashioned method of communication?)

I gather that if someone requested U.S. records of mail communications with public employees or officials, that too would be available to citizens who ask.

So how can you have a private communication with your council member?

Possibilities:

-- You could call the staffer or the official on the phone. Calls are not routinely recorded and if they are, for some reason, both parties to the call, by state law, must be aware, which implies consent.

-- If even that scares you, you could hang outside the person’s home, hoping to give him or her an earful when he/she comes out of the house. That, however, might get you arrested for loitering.

-- You could leave a note in the official’s home mailbox, but the U.S. Postal Service may confiscate it and send you a warning to never do that again. Mailboxes are for U.S. delivered mail only.

-- You could determine the official’s worship habit, grab a seat in the same pew and whisper in his ear. Of course the congregation may hush you and the clergy-person may frown you if you interrupt the service.

-- I wonder whether instant messaging and text messaging are covered by the laws on public access to communications with government officials? If not that may be the solution. Get your kid to text message the kid of the council member or staff, who will translate it to his parent at city hall. Sure, it could end up on the youngster’s Facebook or MySpace pages and that could get you a visit from NBC’s Dateline.

It just depends on how much you want to say something in secret to someone in public life. Otherwise, we probably should keep it to ourselves. Our thoughts are private... for now.

What do you do with used cooking oil?

Marco’s new recycling center should be up and running now in its new state-of-the art facility on Chalmers Drive. It is on Chalmers Drive at Elkcam Circle, even though the facility’s own sign shows the address on Chalmer, as in one chalmer.

Anyway, with the new facility active, a question arose recently about whether the center accepts used cooking oil. It does. At least from individuals, families, homeowners. They cannot take grease from restaurant grease traps though.

“They have to have a professional company pump out their grease traps,” notes Margie Hapke, public information coordinator for Collier County Public Utilities.

For residents it’s critical not to pour large amounts of oil into a storm drain or down the kitchen drain or even onto the ground. They should put it in a plastic bucket for recycling.

Margie says the Tallow Masters company in Golden Gate takes used cooking oil from the recycling center and prepares it for use as an additive to feed for animals.

Sleight of hand is slightly amazing

I’m not a big fan of magicians at carnivals, fairs, or even in nightclubs. We know what they do it’s not magical, however difficult it may be to do it.

I was amazed though at the skill and polish of a sleight of hand magician we met recently. He’s a friend of a friend, so we got a semi-private sample of his work at a small dinner party.

Keith Raygor, well known to a lot of Islanders and others around here for his many corporate shows on Marco and his Sunday-to-Thursday nightly performances at the Watermark Grille on U.S. 41, north of Immokalee Road.

I’ll have a complete report on this interesting local guy who amazes people around the country and abroad, as well as here in Southwest Florida. That will be later this month in my I’m Just Sayin’ column in etc, the Sunday publication.

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Don Farmer has been a full-time Marco Islander for ten years and a part-time resident for more than 30 years. He says full-time is better. Farmer welcomes your ideas for column items via e-mail at don@donfarmer.com.