Charge made against ECWCD; reply is given
To The Editor:
What is the latest word on the board wanting to buy water retention areas?
Will they raise our taxes to do so? The latest information is that Neal Horrom and George
Winslow are concocting a deal for the ECWCD to buy an orange grove for water retention and Mr. Horrom wants to raise our taxes. To do so – is there any finders fee paid? Something stinks. I do not think that individual water commissioners are allowed to solicit or negotiate deals without it being brought up before the board for discussion and action. Isn’t talking to legislators and the personnel who want to dump the land on the taxpayer out of the sunshine and against the law? After all, Mr. Horrom has been on the board for 12 years (much too long) should know that, what does the board attorney have to say about his?
Frank Lohlein
Lehigh Acres
Editor’s Note: We asked the East County Water Control District (ECWCD) to respond to the letter from Frank Lohlein. This is their response:
“The East County Water Control District (ECWCD) began working with the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) in 2004, to help ECWCD to identify its future needs.
“SFWMD provided funding for projects and one of those projects was to have ADA Engineering build a computer model of ECWCD’s canal system. Once the model was complete, ADA was able to simulate a house or a business on every lot in Lehigh, as if the population was at 300,000.
“Then, after simulating a major rainstorm over Lehigh, ADA concluded that at build-out, Lehigh would need a reservoir six square miles, four-feet deep to prevent flooding.
“Since 2007,the Manager of ECWCD, David Lindsay and his staff, have been in discussion with several landowners along the Hendry and Lee county lines, in
hope of finding reservoir land.
“The land in Hendry County is better than in Lehigh because it does not consist of many platted lots and there is only one respective owner. Staff had gathered a lot of information and had developed an interest in two parcels.
“ECWCD would only consider buying land if it had little or no impact for the taxpayers, the Board of Commissioners were very clear on this.
“There is an opportunity now, in this economy, to purchase land for a reservoir with land prices at their lowest and with desperate landowners.
“Over the last six months, the manager has been in serious negotiations with A. Duda and Sons and Hen Lee LLC for the two promising parcels. The negotiation was stalling because a purchase would have caused a significant tax increase.
“Approximately one month ago, Commissioner Neal Horrom went on a fact-finding mission and met with George Winslow, Hen Lee’s representative and the operator of the active citrus grove on the parcel.
“Mr. Winslow and Mr. Horrom met with State Representative Paige Kreegel to talk about the possibility of grant funding for the project.
During that meeting two weeks ago, Rep. Kreegel agreed to bring a $2 million grant request to Tallahassee, but only if ECWCD and Hen Lee LLC can agree on a purchase agreement and a lease agreement, that is tax neutral to the citizens of Lehigh.
“The manager is still in negotiations to see if that is possible. Rep. Kreegel has also said that the regulatory agencies must be on board with the general concept of the reservoir and that ECWCD will make a presentation at the Hendry and Lee County Delegation meetings in November and December, respectively.
“There is a lot of negotiating to do and a lot of high hurdles to jump to make this reservoir a reality. There have been absolutely no sunshine, ethics or
other laws broken during this entire process.”