{"id":42648,"date":"2019-05-07T14:02:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T18:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=42648"},"modified":"2019-05-07T14:08:43","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T18:08:43","slug":"what-will-yes-on-the-lehigh-acres-fire-assessment-mean-for-our-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/05\/what-will-yes-on-the-lehigh-acres-fire-assessment-mean-for-our-community\/","title":{"rendered":"What will \u201cYes\u201d on the Lehigh Acres Fire Assessment mean for our Community?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marissa E. Beyer Community Reporter Lehigh Acres Gazette<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 6, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picture a packed room with citizens of a community, concerned\nover the same thing \u2013 the proposed Lehigh Acres Fire Assessment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Community Council meeting on Monday, May 6,\nLehigh Acres council members along with the Lehigh Acres Fire Chief met\ncommunity members to answer critical questions over the concerns of the Fire\nAssessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lehigh Acres Fire Chief, Robert Dilallo began the meeting\nwith a presentation to overview what the Fire Assessment would mean for the\ncommunity. Lehigh Acres itself is growing and with that comes more emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the Lehigh Acres Fire Department has five fire\nstations. Each covers 142 square miles. As Lehigh continues to grow in population,\nso do emergencies. Chief Dilallo stated in his presentation the Lehigh\nAcres Fire Department is in need of better emergency response time. Fire Chief\nRobert Dilallo, stated \u201cit currently takes LAFD 14 \u2013 20 minutes to get to a\nfire.\u201d and a fire only needs a maximum six minutes to burn down an entire\nhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fire chief says a Fire Assessment would help with\nemergency response times by adding a sixth fire station. Another benefit the\nchief stated was better funding for services and equipment for fire protection,\nincluding emergency medical services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After listening and viewing the presentation from the fire\nchief and the Fire department, the meeting turned to community members for\nquestions. Community members\u2019 main concern was how much the Fire Assessment\nwould cost in taxes? The Fire Assessment proposes a more equitable rate to\nbring high and low assessed homes closer together in rate. The presentation\nstated that 11 out of 12 homes would end up paying less in taxes for fire\nprotection. The presentation also stated commercial business, large and small\nwill see lower fire protection rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, investors were not convinced. An investor stated\nhow her undeveloped areas of land would rise in taxes from $25.29 per lot to\nnow $165.00. Others commented on the cost of having a special election to vote\non the Fire Assessment. Supervisor of Elections,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tommy Doyle stated, \u201cIt\u2019s going to cost the fire district\naround $100,000 to run the election on June 4.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overall goal of the fire assessment is to keep up with\nthe demand and growth in Lehigh Acres. There are over 91,000 acres in Lehigh,\nwhich are undeveloped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undeveloped land equals fire hazards. At the same time as\nLehigh Acres it grows in population, the demand for quicker response in times\nof emergency will go up as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the Fire Assessment worth another tax when weighing it?\nWith the special election is coming up on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, you decide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo from Facbook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marissa E. Beyer Community Reporter Lehigh Acres Gazette May 6, 2019 Picture a packed room with citizens of a community, concerned over the same thing \u2013 the proposed Lehigh Acres… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42649,"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\/42648"}],"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=42648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}