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A new member of the Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue District was sworn into office along with an incumbent at the first meeting last Tuesday following the Nov. 4 election which saw Matt Smith defeat incumbent Commissioner Jackie Danis. Incumbent Linda Carter fought off a challenge by William Liedtke.<\/p>\n
Fire District attorney Richard Pringle administered the oath of office at the very start of the meeting.<\/p>\n
The next order of business for the new fiscal year will be the election of a new board of officers of the commissioners now that Smith has been seated. The voting could take place at the next meeting.<\/p>\n
According to attorney Pringle, the district will consider the adoption of a resolution electing to use the uniform method of collecting such assessments, authorized by Florida Statutes, at a public hearing at 5 p.m. Dec. 16 in the conference room at Station 104, at 3102 SW 16th St. and Sunshine Blvd.\u00a0 Pringle noted that even though the voters had approved the use of an assessment fee, the board must vote to accept the measure to make all things legal.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n During the meeting, Commissioner Carter said she had received an email from a Lehigh landowner who lives in Westerville, Ohio, who complained that the assessment was not fair.<\/p>\n Penni L. Grover wrote and said she and her husband, Robert, own a vacant lot in Lehigh and they were unhappy that they and others with vacant land will be assessed $21 a year for parcels under 10 acres. She said that was about three times as much as the prior ad valorem tax.<\/p>\n She told Carter that the Lehigh Acres Lot Owners Association has asked its attorney to write a letter to each Lee County commissioner asking that $21 assessment on vacant land be reduced by 75 percent to $5.25 a year, “roughly the same amount as was required to be paid under the ad valorem tax.” The county commissioners have nothing to do with the fee and do not control it, nor do they collect it. That is done by the county appraiser.<\/p>\n “Under Florida law, a special assessment is valid only if it is fairly apportioned and provides a direct benefit to the land assessed. Vacant land does not require rescue services and a fire would only burn trees and clear land. The need to protect homes and businesses by putting out fires, perhaps set by arsonists on vacant land, is recognized as it could threaten buildings. However, most often, unimproved property does not benefit very much from fire services and should not bear much of the funding burdens,” she wrote<\/p>\n She called the apportionment of the budget to impose a $300 percent hike on the amount absentee owners of vacant parcels must pay as unfair and said that non-residents like association members such as them, “we do not even qualify to vote.”<\/p>\n “We have no voice in the political process! This is just a political means of keeping taxes low for voting residents we sincerely want to voice our outrage and desire to see this overturned.”<\/p>\n No comment was made by any commissioner about the letter that was put into the official record of the meeting.<\/p>\n Chief Wayne, again as he has in the past, reminded commissioners and residents of Lehigh, that the assessment fee of $292 per home and the $21 fee for vacant land up to 10 acres, doesn’t go into effect until the next fiscal year which is 10 months from now.<\/p>\n For this just passed budget, 2014-2015, the department will continue to operate on collected ad valorem taxes. And while 47 firefighters are subject to layoff next spring when the federal SAFER grant expires, Wayne said the board could consider dipping into reserves for their salaries.<\/p>\n He noted that the two fire stations that would have been shut down will remain open and the fire ambulance squad will remain in Lehigh.<\/p>\n “But we must realize that in eight to 10 months, there could be layoffs,”<\/span><\/strong> Wayne said.<\/p>\n A brush truck overturned two weeks ago on its way to a brush fire in Lehigh prompting Commissioner Linda Carter to ask how much were the damages going to cost for repair. She was told that the amount was $23,000 and was covered by insurance.<\/p>\n The next meeting on Dec. 16 at 5 p.m. is a regular one; it is being held early because of the Christmas holidays. The fire board usually meets on the last Tuesday evening of the month and the public is invited to attend and participate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new member of the Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue District was sworn into office along with an incumbent at the first meeting last Tuesday following the Nov. 4 election… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6302,"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\/33819"}],"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=33819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}