Senator Martin: Bad Time For Fire Merger Bill

If Florida State Representative Adam Botana’s fire district merger Bill makes it up to Tallahassee, Senator Jonathan Martin plans to kill it. He also believes the majority of the local Florida delegation is against the Botana Bill.

Martin represents Florida District 33, which includes Lee County. According to the rules for a local Bill, only House members can propose a Bill. It then gets voted on by the full delegation. If a Bill is approved by the majority, it’s moved onto Tallahassee where it goes through the committee process. If it comes out of committee the full House would then vote. Bills can also be amended or changed along the way in that process.

Martin says at that point in the process a Senator can pull or remove a Bill for any reason he or she chooses. That’s what he says he would do to the Botana merger Bill. And that would essentially kill the Bill. “It would never make it to the Governor’s desk,” Martin told Beach Talk Radio News Monday. “I don’t see a financial study. This is a bad time to do this. We shouldn’t be throwing something big like this at Fort Myers Beach. We should be focused on the recovery.”

Martin went on to say that he’s not seeing a lot of demand for this right now. He did say that at some point all of Lee County should be looked at because it now has 17 special fire districts. “Let’s take a look at it but let’s not single out the hardest hit area.”