{"id":25032,"date":"2013-07-17T01:03:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T05:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=25032"},"modified":"2013-07-17T01:03:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T05:03:08","slug":"exploratory-committee-to-look-into-cityhood-of-lehigh-acres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2013\/07\/exploratory-committee-to-look-into-cityhood-of-lehigh-acres\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploratory Committee To Look
Into Cityhood Of Lehigh Acres"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lehigh Acres Community Council has started an exploratory committee to look into cityhood.<\/p>\n

If this happens Lehigh Acres could become the second-largest city in Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n

The last two times those voters were asked; they rejected incorporation by more than 3-1. Back in 1996, just over 10,000 Lehigh Acres residents voted. And in 2008 Lehigh Acres has nearly 78,000 residents in the community.<\/p>\n

There now are 28,100 registered voters in the Lehigh Acres Fire District.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s just another Florida scam, and if Lehigh become a city your taxes will be raised and we cannot allow that,\u201d said Frank Lohlein, who heads Citizens Against Increased Taxes.<\/p>\n

The Community of Lehigh Acres Fire district is nearly 143 square miles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of self-control,\u201d members of the community council said. \u201cThe ability to determine your future. Sometimes Lehigh Acres is not really on their (county officials\u2019) radar screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

An incorporation study needs to be done but it could be put on the 2016 elections of all pieces are done in time but most likely to happen in 2018 or 2020<\/p>\n

The exploratory committee would have to get voters input on services such as law enforcement, fire department, ECWCD and the street lighting district.<\/p>\n

Lohlein insists during a phone interview that incorporation would drive taxes higher and cost residents plenty.<\/p>\n

\u201cA third of us are seniors, some on fixed budgets,\u201d Lohlein said. \u201cA third are young people struggling to pay bills. The other third is a relatively well-off middle class pushing this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lehigh Acres Community Council has started an exploratory committee to look into cityhood. If this happens Lehigh Acres could become the second-largest city in Southwest Florida. The last two times… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}