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Commissioner Mike Whitehead and his developer "friends" wanted to up the building caps on Perdido Key, vis-a-vis, more beachfront condominiums and housing developments. However, the state refused to go along arguing that the roadways were insufficent for evacuation in the event of a hurricane. Commissioner Whitehead and "friends", ignoring the state suggested method of using impact fees to finance new infrastructure, and holding the state record for devising new taxing schemes to subsidize developer profiteering, came up with a beauty to force all county property owners to pay the bill. It was called the Perdido Key Tax Increment Financing District. Of course, if that wasn't sufficient, then funding would come from county general revenue (in other words, the penny sales tax). After all, they only wanted to borrow $135 million dollars. Shucks, adding interest, that's only a $270 million dollar tax property tax increase. The residents, the Perdido Key Homeowners Association and... we, the Escambia County Citizen's Coalition were aghast at the idea. Enough! Therefore, an appeal of this action was taken into local circuit court. Surprise, surprise, the local judiciary ruled for the developers. Nonetheless, we were not through. Dr. Greg Strand, our president, carried the appeal to the Florida Supreme Court and you know the rest. The Supreme Court ruled in our favor 7-0, unanimously ruling that this clearly violated the constitution of Florida in that before any such action can be taken... For 27 years, local politicians have been illegally forcing homeowners and small businessmen to finance special interest projects. NO MORE! The City of Pensacola apparently just did the same thing with the Maritime Park. While allowing city residents to vote, (well, sort of) they denied a vote to those in the county who would have to pay the lion's share of the bill. Homeowners, small businessmen and, taxpayers thoughout Florida should be cheering! Can you believe it? Most of the local governments in Florida are demanding Escambia County immediately file for a rehearing. Wow! Now isn't that the same bunch that the state legislators recently said need to lower taxes! Let us pray! Bill Davison |
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