{"id":39336,"date":"2016-03-17T12:03:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T16:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=39336"},"modified":"2016-03-17T12:03:02","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T16:03:02","slug":"community-council-asking-for-repeal-of-fire-assessment-fee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2016\/03\/community-council-asking-for-repeal-of-fire-assessment-fee\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Council Asking For Repeal Of Fire Assessment Fee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lehigh Acres Community Council President Mohamed Yasin reported that the board has asked the Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue District to repeal the resolution that created the fire assessment fee.<\/p>\n

The council has asked that the measure be put on the ballot in November.<\/p>\n

Fire Chief John Wayne said the legislation was approved by voters and that the board will not put the fee back on the ballot.<\/p>\n

There are no plans for the council to put the topic on its next fire meeting’s agenda.<\/p>\n

Voters approved the fee in 2014 in an effort to save the fire department, according to officials.<\/p>\n

According to Yasin, the fee resolution has assumptions, duplication of services, such as ambulances, and other costs that do not provide an added value to Lehigh Acres.<\/p>\n

Yasin and the board maintain that these are substantial in nature and “should have been investigated and reported accurately prior to assessment of individual fees.”<\/p>\n

Yasin and the council also said the impact of the fees adversely affects not only the residents, but businesses and in some cases raises taxes for district fire services to an unreasonable amount and the passage of the fees by voters negatively impacts the financial sustainability of residents and businesses.<\/p>\n

The resolution was approved by the 41 members of the board, with the exception of one member who abstained, Fire Commissioner Linda Carter.<\/p>\n

The resolution was delivered to all five, fire board commissioners and the fire chief’s secretary.<\/p>\n

Yasin said the public had complaints.<\/p>\n

“Numerous complaints, outside of the meeting and especially after people see their county taxes, complaints from citizens across Lehigh, seniors on fixed incomes and other home owners and some businesses,” he said.<\/p>\n

As residents receive their tax bills, many are complaining the assessment is too high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lehigh Acres Community Council President Mohamed Yasin reported that the board has asked the Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue District to repeal the resolution that created the fire assessment fee.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39336"}],"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=39336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}