Commissioners Fire Department budget may spur

73 percent tax hike for the citizens of Lehigh Acres

WHY???

This tax and spend attitude that Fire Commissioners Haas, Guzman & Ashman has to STOP NOW!! – These gentlemen are members of the local firefighter union and love to spend your tax dollars – The Lehigh Acres Fire Dept has cash reserves to handle emergencies and impact fees to build at least one new fire station and equip it this year – then why do why need to raise your taxes and borrow 100’s of thousands of dollars also – My question to the Commissioners is --- why do we the citizens need another three quarter of million dollar new fire engine and spend a million dollars on two new ambulances -- just to please the union??? Do we need two new fire stations when already have the cash and impact fees to pay for one in full?

Commissioner Steve Haas has quoted to say the department is understaffed and the increase was necessary to meet fire safety standards. Yet the department is not understaffed and has always passed all fire safety standards requirement tests with flying colors. This is the way the union gets more people be calling the department understaffed. Also why, are the Commissioners giving all the fire fighters and the admin staff pay raises when it is not warranted and when there pay is already inline with other departments locally.

"We've been having to do without on a lot of stations and a lot of apparatus," Commissioner Haas said. The Watchdog’s point is this -- Commissioners have you read our your budget – you would know that there is cash reserves and to handle emergencies and money to buy so-called needed equipment and impact fees to build at least one new fire station and equip it this year instead of borrowing more money and raising taxes. The only issue is with the apparatus is maintenance and the communication when the maintenance is being done. The Commissioners need to learn to run the department and stop micro managing it and let the Chief’s do their jobs. Lehigh Acres Fire Department is just about to loss one of the finest Chief’s in Florida because of two reasons – One - that Commissioners Haas, Guzman & Ashman want to micro manage him --- (who wants to be micro managed) Two - the Commissioners want to hire a chief that is friendly to their union beliefs and their tax and spend attitude.

When communities like Lehigh Acres are faced with drastically increasing property values, officials sometimes use a roll-back millage rate, which means the tax appraiser increases property values a certain amount and the taxing body drops back that same amount so taxes do not go up.

It has been noted at the Florida Ethics Commission website that Commissioner Steven Haas had to pay fines to the Florida Ethics Commission during the last election cycle. Can the taxpayers trust a commissioner that have been found blameworthy under the Florida ethics guidelines and some of the other Commissioners there can be a possible conflict of interest, since three of the five commissioners are union members and must vote on pay raises, discipline and union issues that affect our local department.

I personally challenge the fire board if you raise taxes even one cent then the board must take a pay cut back to the prior amount before this board voted on its own pay raise last year. Fair is Fair!

I ask the citizens of Lehigh Acres to get involved and stop this nonsense of higher taxes.


Robert Anderson
President
Lehigh Acres Watchdog, Inc
(239) 369-6223