{"id":46978,"date":"2020-06-10T19:36:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T23:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=46978"},"modified":"2020-06-10T19:36:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T23:36:40","slug":"lehigh-community-council-has-postponed-a-decision-in-taking-a-formal-position-on-the-new-fire-fee-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/06\/lehigh-community-council-has-postponed-a-decision-in-taking-a-formal-position-on-the-new-fire-fee-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Lehigh Community Council has postponed a decision in taking a formal position on the New Fire Fee Assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"140\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/council-300x140.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35349\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Lehigh Community Council heard a presentation on the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District&#8217;s proposed simplified fire assessment but postponed a decision as to whether the panel should take a formal position on the matter to be decided by voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chief Robert DiLallo was present and spoke to council members and the public, via Zoom, one reason the commission decided not to take a position &#8212; at least not yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Council President Chuck Edwards said the council&#8217;s meeting had a large public turn-out the last time the simplified fire assessment was proposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The proposed change is on the Primary Election ballot, set for Aug. 18. The district is asking Lehigh Acres voters to replace the current &#8220;demand-based&#8221; assessment with a &#8220;simplified&#8221; assessment methodology. Under the simplified methodology, property owners would pay an annual assessment not exceeding $162 per parcel plus $.93 per $1,000 of the value of improvements on a parcel of land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot-owners group is opposed to the change, saying it unfairly &#8212; and substantially &#8212; transfers the burden of cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Lehigh Acres Lot Owners Association says lot owners &#8212; who can&#8217;t vote if they don&#8217;t live in the district &#8212; will pay a 700% assessment increase, even homes valued above $239,000 will see a significant increase over prior years. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Political Action Committee has been form to stop the fire department increases at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getthefactslehigh.com\">www.getthefactslehigh.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the PAC, this is the same thing the people voted down in June 2019 when the fire department $300,000.00 taxpayer money on a special election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lehigh Community Council heard a presentation on the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District&#8217;s proposed simplified fire assessment but postponed a decision as to whether the panel should take&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35349,"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\/46978"}],"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=46978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}