{"id":44558,"date":"2019-09-04T14:54:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T18:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=44558"},"modified":"2019-09-04T14:54:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T18:54:35","slug":"la-msid-votes-for-more-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/09\/la-msid-votes-for-more-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"LA-MSID votes for MORE powers!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nLehigh Acres Municipal Services and Improvement District has voted in favor of\nassuming additional areas of responsibility as allowed by state law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Aug. 19, the board voted in favor of pursuing the following additional “powers” during its regular meeting; Planning and Zoning, Streetlights, and Sidewalks, which will be placed up for a vote on the November 2020 ballot as a local referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The district will have to have an agreement by the end of May to be able to have time to get information to the supervisor of elections for November 2020 ballot, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\ncareful consideration and the review of various studies including an\nAcquisition Feasibility Analysis of Florida Governmental Utility Authority\ncompleted by Santec, the majority of district commissioners voted against\ntaking over FGUA at this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto District Manager David Lindsay, while the board voted against the\nacquisition of water and sewer now, they did vote in favor of trying to get an\nagreement with Lee County on FGUA in time for it the 2022 referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If\nwe did get approval, it would need to be into the supervisor of elections by\nJuly 2022,” Lindsay said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\npurchasing FGUA, LA-MSID would need to go through a three-step approval\nprocess: (1) Lee County approval and agreement is necessary to allow LA-MSID to\nassume Lee County’s role in the acquisition of the debt and operation, (2) a\nsuccessful referendum vote of the voters inside LA-MSID, and (3) the approval\nof the LA-MSID Board of Commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meetings\nwith Lee County Commissioners would be the next step towards moving forward on\nthe proposed acquisition of each power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The\nnext step will be for myself and District Chair Mike Bonacolta to set up a\nmeeting with the county commissioners to see what they will allow. Whatever\nthey want to allow us to do, is what we will do,” Lindsay said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nboard also approved its first fiscal year 2019-20 Bridge Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The\namount of $285,000 will be put in each year, which continue to build interest\nand compound yearly. It wouldn’t be enough to pay for the bridges forever, but\nit would pay for at least two or three bridges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto Lindsay, the engineer who did a recent bridge study for the district said\nthat a bridge, on average, lasts about 75 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So\nthat would put us at about 2040 for our oldest bridge,” Lindsay said.\n“This should be enough money in the fund these repairs without having to\ntake out a loan. The most expensive bridge would cost $1.75 million, and the\nleast expensive about $772,000.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nLehigh Acres Municipal Services Improvement District will hold its next meeting\non Sept. 16 at 6 p.m. at the LA-MSID, at 601 East County Lane. For information,\nvisit LA-MSID at www.myecwcd.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lehigh Acres Municipal Services and Improvement District has voted in favor of assuming additional areas of responsibility as allowed by state law. On Aug. 19, the board voted in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43104,"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\/44558"}],"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=44558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}