Loss Of Control
 

I am amazed that 66 other counties in Florida seem to have been willing to give up control of impact fees. Each county that imposed impact fees made their own determination of how much those fees should be. They no longer have that control. I wonder if the major developers in these other counties are as strong as our developer? The vote seemed very lopsided in favor of all developers in the state. IMHO, the advocates for higher impact fees in Sumter County, won the battle but lost the war. They say you can’t fight city hall. We must replace the two remaining Commissioners along with Baxley and Hage.

Wonder how much the going rate to buy these people is these days?

I really think it’s damn funny that you people ****ed off at the Developer still live here; there are so many people that don’t like what they do but continue to live here.

If I hated a place as much as some of you do, I’d sell (for a very good profit) and move to the place that you think is Nirvana.

I'm confused, the bill says impact fees can be increased up to 50 percent?

How is that different from what the commissioners approved?

The criticism is corrupt local politics. That is something to be addressed and cleaned up, not moved away from. Tossing out Butler, Burgess, and Printz was a good first step, but obviously not enough. Breeden, Gilpin, Hage, and Baxley also have to go.

Going from memory so...

I believe the bill allows 12.5% per year and no more than 50% over four years but the commissioners raised the fees by 75%.

The vast majority love it here but not happy with the local politics that is extremely corrupt and starting to do something about it.

Thanks!

So what's wrong with capping and limiting the rate of increase of impact fees over time?

So, in retrospect, would “we” have been further ahead if the current Commissioners would have taken the 40% offer from The Developer? Or at least tried to negotiate... maybe nudge the number up a bit?

Do you have any evidence of a crime of corruption to share with us?

There is what one can get away with when they have the resources to always ultimately get their way, and then there is doing the right thing.

There is plenty of evidence of corruption, and the evidence is well known to residents who don't rely on the Daily Sun for their local news.

That is why the Developer's puppets got booted out, last year, IN THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY by a 2-to-1 margin. Is it criminal corruption and can enough evidence be found for a criminal conviction? We will only know the answer if Florida law enforcement conducts a serious investigation, which seems unlikely. (The people with first-hand knowledge of the relevant facts are unlikely to heed your request to share the evidence with us.)

If you are really interested in understanding what has gone on and continues to go on, take a look at Hage's co-sponsorship of legislation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Developer (at the expense of Sumter County residents) while apparently on the payroll of the Developer and T&D.

Probably in the same place as all the stolen, and fake votes from the last election searchers still cannot find!:icon_wink:

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You can believe there is corruption but as a former SA of the FBI you know a case has to be built and brought to court with a conviction to prove that allegation. We are far from that.

But the biggest stretch in your comment is the “hundreds of millions” comment. Let’s say the developer builds 2400 new homes each year, which is pretty close for the past 4 years. The increase was 75% or about an additional $700 per home. That is $1.68 million per year. As a former finance guy I can tell you with certainty it would take over 50 years to reach even $100 million, much less hundreds of millions.

As I have stated in the past, it is your exaggerations of facts that hurt your arguments.

That's hard to say for a few reasons:
- The 40% offer was only on the small portion of new construction that is assessed the lowest impact fees.

- The 40% offer came with a catch, impact fees for the rest of the new construction where the larger impact fees are paid would have been locked with no increases for several years.

- The bill to limit impact fees was still going through the legislature. It could have been determined that the 40% would still be lowered under the new bill but that the agreement to freeze the rest of the fees was still enforceable.

- On the other hand, if the bill had allowed the terms of the agreement then a 40% increase for some new construction might have been greater than a 12.5% increase for all new construction.

While you are a former finance guy, I am a former corporate lawyer who used to have to review business plans and cut through the unrealistic assumptions that you finance guys would make. :icon_wink:

As I have stated in the past, my figure of “hundreds of millions” is not an exaggeration. In a nutshell, while the exact amount of the impact fees that the Developer should be paying cannot be calculated without an impact study, it is instructive to look at what he would pay in Collier County, which has done the study for a retirement community's impact on county infrastructure. In that County, the Developer would pay more than $20,000 more per house than he pays here. Go to the Collier County website for proof.

The Developer is going to build 60,000 additional houses here. 60,000 houses x $20,000/house = $1.2 billion value to the Developer from his sweetheart impact fee (and cost to the current residents). Furthermore, the $1.2 billion does not include the amount the Developer gets from the sweetheart fee on his commercial buildings.

But you are right, the 75% road-impact fee increase was not enough to total what the Developer should be paying. In addition to roads, the Developer needs to pay an impact fee for other county infrastructure, like fire, ems, police, libraries, parks, government buildings, etc. He would have to pay it in Collier County, where he doesn't control the County Commission. He, and not the current residents, should be bearing the cost here. If you were following the news, you would know that our new County Commissioners have voted to conduct an impact-fee study regarding those additional infrastructure items. However, the Developer appears to have out maneuvered our new Commissioners in Tallahassee.

Bottom line: if anything, my figure of "hundreds of millions” is far from an exaggeration. It may well be an understatement of the benefit to the Developer and the cost to the residents.

BTW, what do you think of Hage's actions?

As I have stated in the past........over and over.

It's nice to see commissioners who overstepped their authority stopped.

Assuming you mean the current commissioners, in what way did they overstep their authority? You may not agree with what they did but many did. Where was the overstep?

So, no evidence of corruption. Just your opinions. "If" is not prima facea evidence. Thanks.

Florida isn't much different than a lot of places, in that the attitude of "whatever it takes for my people to stay in power" and "the best government money can buy" - seems to be the prevailing sentiment.

There's not a lot of quality government when most of the previous year you relied on revenue from tourism during a pandemic when most things were shut down.

You get what you pay for. The lower the taxes (including no income tax, plus massive tax breaks for corporations and the uber-wealthy), the less money you have available to buy a quality government. Not that I think we need an income tax - but we, as a state (exclusive of the Villages which is a different plane of existence on another planet), need to make improvements in the revenue stream and improvements in distribution of funds.

Most of the modern politicians are in it for the money. The days of a modest person like Harry Truman rising through the political ranks are gone. In the quest for millions they ride that gray area to riches.

Hardly just my opinion.

The Hage-gate scandal is well documented, as is the whole history of the Developer's relationship with his puppet Sumter County Commissioners, his backing of One Sumter, his sweetheart deal with impact fees, the use of fake candidates to disenfranchise voters in the last Republican primary, avoidance of the $1,000 cap on local-election campaign contributions, the conduct of George Angeliadis's fishing expedition to try to intimidate the new Commissioners and their supporters, etc.

I see no one charged or indicted for any of your claims. Fortunately the majority of the state legislature had the wisdom to prevent the collapse of future economic growth of the state by renegade county commissioners. Making it retroactive to Jan, 1st was another win for sustained growth in Sumter County.

Well, perhaps you can tell us EXACTLY what these "corrupt" things are. Please detail exactly what the crimes are and what laws were broken. We'll wait....

Corruption may or may not be criminal, and any criminality is not going to be provable except via a criminal investigation by the appropriate authorities.

"Corruption" is defined as dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power. I have provided examples of actions that most people would consider corrupt. If you want more details, they are readily available through the use of Goggle. You will find a number of relevant, verifiable facts in articles in the on-line newspaper.

Those so-called "renegade" county Commissioners were overwhelmingly elected by the residents of Sumter County. Those residents were outraged about being hit with a 25% property-tax increase, enacted by the Developer's puppet Commissioners to protect the Developer's sweetheart impact fee.

Too bad for you there are way more representatives of the people in the legislature that have their economic wits about them and saved state's and the county's future economic success.

You have provided no evidence of corruption. Just your sour grapes.

Come on, in one previous post you told me you were a SA for the FBI in New Jersey. Now a corporate lawyer? Hundreds of millions include homes that have not been built at a rate that no one, including the current commissioners in Sumter County, have ever stated is the correct amount. Again, your numbers don’t add up. As far as Hage, all politicians listen to businesses in the area they represent. If there is a specific law he violated please report it to the appropriate authorities.

It is amazing that people are shocked that politicians are influenced by businesses. I guess labor unions and teachers unions don’t do the same thing or worse. Trial lawyers have no influence right? How about, never mind…I am sure you stopped listening.

I have provided plenty of evidence of corruption, all of which is publicly available from other sources as well, not just from me. You decide if you think that the evidence of corruption is proof of criminal corruption. I would be particularly interested in your views on Hage's actions on behalf of his employer, the Developer.

All statements that I have made are true, including those about my background.

Making people who already live in the county pay for the future, that new homebuyers create IS government taking your money and giving it to new homebuyers. It's also called socialism. These politicians are Republican in name only.

New homes pay a higher percentage than legacy homeowners in property taxes and bonds. Existing homeowners benefit from the expansion through the growing tax base and the compression of their tax rate due to the homestead exemption. Continuous growth is why taxes did not increase the past ten years.

If that last line was the reason for them not increasing their taxes, then they wouldn't have needed to catch up after 14 years of no increase.

Fact is, Sumter County has not fared well with their budget. Remember SOMEONE owned all that land during the past 14 years, and SOMEONE was paying taxes on it all along, even the parts that weren't being developed.

But the tax amounts were stagnant, and now they're behind on their bills, and don't have enough to pay for certain services that you, the taxpayer, enjoy.

So now they have to catch up. If they had made MODEST increases every year, instead of relying on new development to foot the bill for everyone else, they wouldn't have had any need to catch up.