Wednesday at 10AM the Fort Myers Beach Mosquito Control District will host an information session at the Library to present factual information on a potential merger with Lee County. Beach Talk Radio will broadcast the session live.
On November 3rd, voters on Fort Myers Beach and in Lee County will vote on a referendum to merge the two districts. Both sets of voters have to approve the referendum by over 50% in order for the merger to go through. If either side fails to meet the 50% threshold, the merger fails.
The district is not permitted to take sides on the merger, they can only present factual information to the voters which they are planning to do tomorrow and then again on October 21st.
The referendum is the brainchild of State Representative Adam Botana who’s been trying to merge special districts because he believes there are overlapping services and fewer special districts will save taxpayers money. He’s also proposed the Fort Myers Beach Fire district merge with Iona-Mcgregor.
The Fort Myers Beach Mosquito Control Board currently operates out of a trailer by the Woman’s Club property on Lazy Way mid-island. They lost their building in Hurricane Ian and have plans to rebuild on that property. The district was established in 1949 — forty-six years before the town incorporated.
The district will present their rebuild plans to the LPA Tuesday. The proposal is for a 2,942-square-foot building with 1344 square feet of occupied office and approximately 225-square-foot chemical storage structure separate structure; 15 parking spaces; and associated fleet, access, landscaping, drainage, and utility improvements. The use on the property previously existed, was legally established prior to and destroyed by Hurricane Ian.
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On Bay Beach Lane, we have been getting very good mosquito control from the FMB Mosquito Control District. Life along the lane would be intolerable without FMBMCD’s services.
Sorry, this referendum targets decreasing cost for Lee County and decreasing services for FMB!! The mosquitoes this year have been rentless and the response of our mosquito control is top notch. Cannot see Lee County providing next day services. Instead of calling FMB Mosquito Control we would be lost to the quagnire of forms, ect. before they would even come out here! They probably have a limited gas budget for their vehicles so lots of luck getting them to FMB. Please help us restore/keep the good services we have while we forfeit everything else to the “the specter of public beneft defined by developers!!
Botana is a peanut politician who does not live or pay taxes in either fort Myers Beach or any of the Iona McGregor communities. Vote no and send him a clear message that the people of fort Myers Beach are fully capable of owning an operating their own infrastructure even if botana disagrees.
NO no no no no no NO!
I wonder why Rep Botana only wants the beaches special districts to merge. No other districts need to merge to “save” money. He doesn’t represent the beach. Another bought and paid for politician