State Representative Adam Botana is on a mission to merge several of the fire districts in his voting district. After an attempt to pursue a merger of the Bonita Springs Fire District with Fort Myers Beach failed, Botana came back with plan B.
Botana believes there are too many fire districts across the state of Florida and consolidating some of them will save taxpayers money. The Fort Myers Beach Fire District Board disagrees with that assessment.
Botana’s second attempt to merge districts calls for completely dissolving the Fort Myers Beach Fire District. Botana wants to create two new districts from three existing districts and that involves Bonita Springs, Fort Myers Beach and Iona-McGregor. The Matanzas Pass Bridge would split the two new districts.
One district would be created from the Matanzas Pass Bridge east to Iona and become the Iona-McGregor Fire District. Currently, the Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District extends over the bridge on San Carlos Boulevard. The other new district would cover everything from the Matanzas Pass Bridge south toward Bonita and become the Bonita Beach Fire District.
Botana’s new bill does not call for a study before being implemented. It does call for a referendum of the voters, which is what he promised when his first merger plan died. If this latest plan moves forward, it would be on the ballot in November of 2024.
This week, the Fort Myers Beach Fire District approved a resolution by a 4-1 vote to conduct a study to determine if a merger with Iona makes financial sense for the taxpayers.
The resolution, which Commissioner Ron Flemming voted against, says the study will be done by an independent expert consultant and that the study is warranted because a merger of the two districts “constitutes a significant impact on the residents, voters, taxpayers, and visitors to Fort Myers Beach and Iona McGregor.”
The Iona McGregor Fire District passed a similar motion earlier this week.
It’s unknown what the study will cost but it will be split evenly between the two districts. It’s also unknown how this study, when complete, will impact Botana’s plan to create two new districts, a bigger Iona-McGregor district and a bigger Bonita Springs district and basically dissolve Fort Myers Beach completely.
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