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No tour of Lehigh was ever planned

By Staff | Feb 8, 2009

The White House announced Sunday that President Obama won’t be touring Lehigh Acres. In fact, there was never any plan for the President to tour Lehigh, despite reports by TV stations and the printed media.

He is due in Fort Myers Tuesday at noon to speak to a crowd of at least 1,500 people at the Harborside Event Center and then he may meet with a Lehigh Acres family who are having tough economic times.

Meanwhile, several leaders in Lehigh, a group representing different non-governmental agencies met Sunday night to come up with a “Lehigh Economic Stimulus Plan,” they hope to get it to Obama or an aide while he is in Fort Myers.

Lee County Commissioner Frank Mann was at the meeting at the Living Waters Friendship Church on Sunshine Blvd. Members of the Lehigh Community Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Lehigh Acres Community Planning Corp. (LACPC) hastily put the meeting together.

They called for an emergency meeting at 6 p.m. and it lasted for about 90 minutes. Around 50 people turned out for the meeting and the group discussed current needs in Lehigh to put life back into the economy.

The group plans to release the proposed plan Monday at a press conference at the Microtel Inn and Suites on Business Way in downtown Lehigh.

Obama is expected to begin speaking at a town hall type meeting at noon, officials said. They said he would probably fly out of Fort Myers by 4 p.m.

The trip to Fort Myers on Air Force One will be Obama’s second trip as president on the plane. The first will be Monday to Indiana where he plans to visit another community that has been hit especially hard due to layoffs and foreclosures.

The trips planned by the White House are being made to convince Congress that his $800 billion to $850 billion stimulus plan should be passed by the end of next week.

Tickets to get into Harborside Event Center are up for grabs beginning 9 a.m. Monday morning. It’s a first-come, first served give away of tickets for the Obama gathering, which will be covered by the national news media.

Lee County was selected for the Obama visit because it leads the state in foreclosures and unemployment rates.

Stories in The New York Times have shown the plight of Lehigh Acres and local leaders believe because of that, they may get some publicity for coming up with a plan to help Lehigh survive these bad times.

Mann told the group that they should concentrate their efforts on things that will means immediate jobs like building and repaving roads in Lehigh and constructing sidewalks and installing water and sewer lines. Some suggested hiring people to finish building homes that were left half built when the economic bubble went bust.

“These are things that can put people back to work immediately,” Mann said. Once passed, the Stimulus Package federal money would filter itself down through the states and then to the counties and Mann said an influx of federal money coming to Lee County would mostly go to the betterment of Lehigh Acres.

“Of all of Lee County, it is the people here who need the help the most,” Mann said.

The meeting was co-chaired by Bo Turbeville, president of the LACPC and Damon Shelor, the president of the Lehigh Community Council.