FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                                                       

Contact:  Pete Winton, Lee County Administration

               (239) 335-2777

COMMISSION DELAYS COMMUNICATIONS TAX DECISION/

APPROVES WATER PLANT EXPANSION PRICE

FORT MYERS, Fla. (August 19, 2003) - The Board of Lee County Commissioners today approved the following items during its regular weekly meeting.  They are:

Communications Services Tax - Deferred for one week any adjustment to the Communications Services Tax rate while more information is gathered about potential uses for funds collected and impacts of various rate-reduction scenarios.  The current rate is 5.2 percent collected on such things as cable TV, phones, cell phones, faxes and pagers.  The Commission has the option to reduce the rate to 2 percent (basically revenue-neutral from the prior cable franchise fee), keep the current rate, or adjust the rate to somewhere in between.  County staff will provide the Board with various scenarios and funding options next week.

New Development Services Building - Approved a lease for the City of Fort Myers to occupy the first floor of the new Building Inspectors/Code Enforcement Building at 1735 Hendry Street that is scheduled to open in the next two months.  The city will pay annual installments of $158,393 for 30 years to occupy the 15,000-square-foot first floor.  The county will occupy the other two floors, including building inspections, code enforcement, contractor licensing, purchasing and some Clerk of Courts functions.

Federal Payment - Accepted $85,323 from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as payment in lieu of taxes from the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  The payment is done annually as part of the Refuge Revenue Sharing Act from income generated nationally on Service lands, such as oil and gas revenues, sale of timber products, gravel, grazing receipts, and other products.

Water Plant Expansion - Approved a guaranteed maximum price of $2.29 million for the expansion of the Corkscrew Water Treatment Plant from capacity of 10 million gallons per day to 15 million gallons.  The construction manager is Earth Tech Inc.

Impact Fees - Set the schedule of committee reviews and two public hearings of Sep. 23 and Oct. 14 to discuss proposed increases to the county's road impact fees.  Depending on the calculation, the current fee could increase from $2,436 for a single-family home to anywhere from $2,971 to $3,500.

Federal Transportation Funding - Received a briefing from Commissioner John Albion's Office on research his intern, Gino Casanova, did this summer showing Florida receives much less in Federal road-building appropriations than it sends to the government in federal gas tax dollars collected, meaning it is a donor state.  The Federal appropriations acts are known as ISTEA and TEA21.  The research shows that under both bills, Florida received back only 89% of payments, or about $1.4 billion less than paid.  For more information on ISTEA and TEA21, visit http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/attrib.htm.