Quote:
Originally Posted by Aloha1
Surprised this hasn't already been posted here. The latest move by the "Gang Of Three" to ignore their own decision to table any tax increase until their July meeting and proceed to increase everyone in Sumter County's taxes smacks of a violation of their fiduciary responsibility.
And why is this happening? Because the State legislature has put a halt to these egregious increases as of July 1st. So our new overlords want to enact their increase on June 30th. Way to go. Just ignore any research or learning and proceed to "kill" without due process.
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Your post is factually challenged, reads like something the Developer would say, and ignores both history and the current facts. You gotta stop believing the nonsense that David R. Corder, the Developer's Minister of Propaganda, is publishing in the Daily Sun.
The History: As a result of the massive 25% property-tax increase, which was enacted by the Developer's puppet Commissioners to protect the Developer's sweetheart impact fee, outraged voters elected your so-called “Gang of Three” (better known as the EMS Team of Estep, Miller, and Search) in a landslide. The EMS Team campaigned on a pledge to roll back the property-tax increase by ending the Developer's sweetheart deal on impact fees.
The Current Facts: Unfortunately, Commissioner Estep made what has turned out to be a serious misstep when he moved to table action until July. Meanwhile, despite his obvious conflict of interest, T&D (a major Developer supplier) employee Bret Hage was quietly pushing, obviously at the direction of the Developer, legislation that would limit any increase in impact fees after July 1 to 3%. This underhanded strategy to protect the Developer's sweetheart deal, at the expense of the residents, has now come to light.
Consequently, Mr. Estep has joined Mr. Miller and Mr. Search to accelerate action in case the proposed legislation, which is opposed by the Florida League of Cities, gets passed. (Contrary to your post, it has not yet passed and if voters wake up to its implications, it will not pass.) In retrospect, it is too bad that the EMS Team didn't act immediately upon taking office in January rather than expecting good-faith negotiations with the Developer.