D.O.T. denies Free Dirt to Lee County Resident

Tonight Four in your Corner digging up more dirt on Lee County's troubled transportation department.

One resident says the county refused to give him free dirt because his property is located in Cape Coral.. But the truth is, his property is *not* in Cape Coral. Apparently, D.O.T workers don’t even know who lives in Lee County and who doesn't.

Tim Simon raises goats, chickens and a few guinea hens at his property on Saddlewood Lane in Lee County. He says every time it rains his animals head for higher ground, "as soon as it starts raining a lot there's going to be flooding in here and my goats are going to be standing in water, if there's free dirt I sure would like to get it."
When Simon heard the county was giving away free dirt he called the Department of Transportation's Operations Center and said, "I saw your thing about you're going to give away dirt in an article from Fox News and it floods out here and I hear D.O.T wants to give away some dirt and I tried to get some and they claim I'm not in Lee County and I'm in the City of Cape Coral.
So now we know that D.O.T doesn't deliver dirt to Cape Coral but Four in your Corner found Simon's property is located in Unicorporated Lee County and not Cape Coral. That’s something D.O.T workers should know since Simon's property can be pulled up on the county's website showing he pays taxes to Lee County. Four in your Corner called D.O.T to find out what's going on but the operator couldn't give us a straight answer. We were then transferred to a D.O.T supervisor.
After speaking with us, the supervisor realized Simon's home *is* in Lee County but he then told us D.O.T only delivers dirt to properties located directly on county roads and Simons lives off a state road. Simon says that doesn't make sense, especially after watching our reports on how D.O.T delivered hundreds of truckloads of free dirt to a supervisor's family member. Drivers say they drove more than 7 miles each way from Fort Myers to Buckingham and the most direct routes would have drivers using state roads.

Simons says he would love any dirt he could get, "I could take hundreds but I would take one". If you live in Lee County and would like dirt delivered to your property you can call D.O.T’s Operations Center.

The number is 239-533-9400 and tell them you'd like a Dirt Request Form.
To view the story on Fox 4 click here: http://www.fox4now.com/news/toprotator/125460278.html