{"id":33081,"date":"2014-10-08T12:36:34","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T16:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=33081"},"modified":"2014-10-08T13:34:14","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T17:34:14","slug":"editorial-two-fire-commissioners-try-to-gag-the-local-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2014\/10\/editorial-two-fire-commissioners-try-to-gag-the-local-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Two Fire Commissioners
Try To Gag the Local Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial By The Staff of The Lehigh Acres Gazette<\/p>\n

\"\"Over the weekend two Fire Commissioners called the Lehigh Acres Gazette<\/em> to try to gag and put a stop to upcoming articles about the Lehigh Acres Fire Department and the Fire Tax Assessment.<\/p>\n

Even one of the Fire Commissioners was begging us not to tell the Fire Chief or their attorney they call us.<\/p>\n

When we asked them about the Fire Assessment, both commissioners had similar stories: We can\u2019t do anything else expect for the fire assessment our attorney\u2019s will not allow us.<\/p>\n

So we asked who is running actual fire board the elected officials or the attorney\u2019s. \u00a0Both commissioners refused to answer that one.<\/p>\n

One Commissioner stated that they would consider suing the paper if the stories would not stop. The Lehigh Acres Gazette\u2019s Publisher politely reminded the commissioner about First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;<\/strong> or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also reminded the commissioner that articles are based fact, editorial could be based on fact and\/ or opinion but both are protected under the Florida Constitution Article I Section 4 and\u00a0Constitution for the United States of America.<\/p>\n

We are not here to embarrass these commissioners in any way, but the taxpayers and voters deserve to know the truth and the factual information.<\/p>\n

So what are these elected officials trying to hide from the voters in Lehigh Acres?<\/p>\n

Will this fire tax assessment even pass?<\/p>\n

There are too many open-ended questions that the Fire Department refuses to answer or they put their own spin on it that doesn\u2019t make any sense. And now, two Fire Commissioners calling the media in which there were told not to do in a public meeting by their attorney.<\/p>\n

So what has changed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial By The Staff of The Lehigh Acres Gazette Over the weekend two Fire Commissioners called the Lehigh Acres Gazette to try to gag and put a stop to upcoming… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33081"}],"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=33081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}