Botana behind mailer bombardment on beach merger referendums

By now, thousands of households around Lee County have received the mailers from the group FreeLee telling them to vote for merging the Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District and Iona Fire District, and to vote in favor of merging the Fort Myers Beach Mosquito Control District into the Lee County Mosquito Control District. The cost for producing those mailers is anything but free and the chair of the FreeLee Political Action Committee is none other than State Rep. Adam Botana (R-Bonita Springs), the same state legislator who originally proposed the mergers. The mergers, which have been opposed by the Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District commissioners and Fort Myers Beach Mosquito Control District commissioners, are on Tuesday s ballot. The funding for FreeLee comes in the form of a $150,000 contribution from Conservatives for Clean Water, a political action committee chaired by Botana, and $100,000 contributions from Tiffany for Florida, a political action committee chaired by State