1% sales tax increase
To the editor:
Lee County commissioners, under the guise of being unable to pay for new roads, were scheduled to meet this Tuesday to contemplate raising the price of everything you buy by 1%.
I think they should have a meeting devoted to introspection to understand the reasons they find themselves in this current predicament.
Let’s travel back in time to 2008 when the commissioners at the behest of developers drastically cut the impact fees. They then devised a scam called the Growth Fund which was supposed to replace those lost monies. This is a fund that they have not placed any money in for at least the last two years and giving them the benefit of the doubt of ever funding it, where did the monies go to? I must remind you that any monies going in to or out of this said fund are YOUR monies.
This past year the county collected $42,000,000 in road impact fees. If they had not reduced these fees, the amount collected would have been $80,000,000. If you are curious what that lost $38,000,000 would have purchased, keep reading.
To pave over dirt roads as they have been doing in Lehigh Acres, the cost is approximately $73,000 per mile. If they had not lost that money, they would have been able to pave over an additional 52 miles of dirt road.
To widen a 2-lane road to 4 lanes costs approximately $5,500,000 per mile. If they had not lost that money, they would have been able to widen an additional 7 miles of road. (This does not include possible land taking.)
To build a new 2-lane road costs approximately $5,500,000 per mile. If they had not lost that money, they would have been able to widen an additional 7 miles of road. (This does not include possible land taking.)
Extend this over the 18 years of their giveaway and they would have been able to pave an additional 936 miles of dirt road or widen an additional 124 miles of road or construct an additional 124 miles of new road.
But no, they want you to pay for the incompetence they have exhibited over the years. They want you to pay for their allegiance to the developers. And, just maybe, as you, the voters, keep voting for the same people; it is deserved.
The meeting was canceled and, according to Commissioner Brian Hamman, they came under pressure against any new tax. He also tried to brush it under the carpet by saying that the lack of funds was not their fault. That does not disprove the facts that show that it is the incompetence of the commissioners that brought this situation about.
Stay tuned to find out when they float this again or invent another scheme to try to bail themselves out at the cost of the taxpayers.
Norman Cannon
Fort Myers