Welcome to the Future City of Lehigh Acres
About us
Unite Lehigh, Inc is a not-for-profit organization 501©3, Founded by local residents to study the idea of incorporation. The first thing that needs to be done is a feasibility study, which is required by State Law. This study will provide enough information on whether Lehigh Acres has enough to stand up as a city. Lehigh Acres has grown exponentially over the past 15 years. To understand the idea of incorporation, a series of town hall meetings will be provided for everyone who has questions to ask. These town hall meetings are nothing but educational series to bring the community together. Besides the town hall meetings, working with local, and state officials is very important to bring the idea of incorporation to the table. Once the feasibility study is completed, a charter must be written and presented to our Elected State Officials to bring it to the legislature for discussion and make it a bill. Once it’s approved, and presented to the Governor, it will be added to the election, and the residents of Lehigh Acres will have a chance to raise their voices and vote. There is a timeline to work with and decide when the charter must be completed.
We encourage and welcome anyone who is willing to get involved and help with the process.
Benefits of Cityhood
Persons wishing to incorporate want a better “quality of life,” and “controlling their own destiny.”You will continue to pay county property taxes, school property taxes, and property taxes to the water management district. In addition, you will pay property taxes to the municipality. However, the fundamental distinction between city taxes and other taxes is that you will control the amount of taxes, you will control the revenues and how the revenues are spent, and the revenues will be spent to benefit you.
Once the municipality has been created, a number of revenue sources become available to the municipality to fund its operations. The ultimate source of municipal revenues can be placed in 3 broad categories: revenues derived under the municipality's authority, state-shared revenues, and county-shared revenues.
Having a voice will give us the benefit to fix our roads, more sidewalks, street lights, more businesses, thus more local employment, beautification of the town, control of our budget, more revenue, and code enforcement (street dumping), and a place to call HOME.
Municipal Revenues:
The municipality may generate revenues under its own authority. These revenue sources include the following:
Sec. 166.231, Fla. Stat., authorizes a municipality to levy up to a 10%municipal utility tax (Public Service Tax) on the purchase of electricity, water service, and metered natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas either metered or bottled, manufactured gas either metered or bottled.
Sec. 202.19, Fla. Stat. also authorizes municipalities to levy a Local Communication Services Tax up to 5.12% on a broad range of statutorily determined communication services.
Municipalities are authorized to enter into franchise agreements, and thus receive franchise fees, from private electric, telephone, water, sewer, natural gas, and other utilities for the use of the municipality’s rights-of-way and for the privilege of doing business within the municipality
A significant percentage of a municipality's revenues are derived from charges for services (impact fees, user fees, and special assessments) for such municipal services as water, wastewater, natural gas, mass transit, garbage collection, building inspections, infrastructure, and the like. Municipalities are generally authorized to charge a reasonable fee to offset the costs of providing the services.
Municipalities derive revenues from fines and penalties imposed for the violation of various municipal ordinances and statutes. In addition, municipalities derive revenues from the sale of contraband property seized by its law enforcement agencies.
State-Shared Revenues:
The state levies several taxes and shares the proceeds derived from the taxes with Florida's municipalities. The primary state-shared revenues come from the Municipal Revenue Sharing Trust Fund for Municipalities and the Local Government Half-Cent Sales Tax.
The Revenue Sharing Trust Fund for Municipalities consists primarily of 1.3409 percent of the state sales and use tax, and the 1¢ per gallon State tax on motor fuel.
The Local Government Half-Cent Sales Tax is funded from approximately 8.814%of the state’s 6% sales and use tax. The proceeds from the Fund are distributed among Florida's counties and municipalities on a weighted population basis, with municipalities receiving approximately one-third of the Fund's proceeds.
County Shared Revenues:
State law authorizes counties to levy various taxes, a portion of the proceeds of which must be shared with municipalities located within the county. Relatively small county taxes that must be shared with municipalities include the county mobile home license tax, the county alcoholic beverage license tax, and the county occupational license tax. Chief among the county taxes that must be shared with the municipalities located within the county is the local option gas tax (1-6 cents).
There are more benefits to the cityhood. You can review all this and how the process is done by visiting the link below from the State of Florida Statute title XII (165-189)
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Index&Title_Request=XII#TitleXII