Any ideas about what things we will have to change given the triple whammy of property tax reform from Crist, local declining property values and of course the collapse of the US markets?
Hopefully local government will stop wasting money.
Quote from: RiversideGator on September 30, 2008, 05:59:02 PM
Hopefully local government will stop wasting money.
and provide everyone with wood to construct shanties, not just some down and out congress critter
We should elect Daniel Davis as Mayor. John Peyton has served us well and Daniel Davis is like his cousin or something I think.
Quote from: Driven1 on September 30, 2008, 06:11:51 PM
We should elect Daniel Davis as Mayor. John Peyton has served us well and Daniel Davis is like his cousin or something I think.
will he promise to distribute the shanty building supplies equally?
New local taxes should be repealed. The new annual storm water run-off tax should be pulled immediately.
Furthermore, on a state level, the "save our homes" amendment should be repealed. Commercial property taxes have in most cases increased by 30-50% and and many cases, they have even more than doubled. These costs could be the make or break for many local small business who either own their own property or have them passed on in their shopping center CAM fees.
The local government should lay off unecssary people and prepare for the downturn the same way private business prepares for down times.
Crist and Peyton tax initiatives have been an absolute disaster. The tax burden to homeowners should be a wash if we implement to aforementioned policies I suggested and local business owners will fare much better and should be able to increase hiring if they need it.
That is over-simplifying it Stepen.
Concurrency costs deal with street improvements and drainage. They act as the City's fund for infrastructure improvements
The new tax only has a name dealing with drainage. Really, it is just a new tax intended to help the city cover some of the shortfall in revenues from the recent housing downturn.
Taxes may be too low. Spending may be too high. I simply can't answer that.
But lowering one tax in order to create another new tax doesn't make much sense either. It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Either increase residential taxes or don't, but I think it's stupid to make up some new tax and telling people their taxes are going down while they get a new bill in the mail.
I live in a 60 year old house. It's pretty stupid to believe my house is creating more run-off now than it did a year ago or 20 years ago. Should I dig a new retention pond in my back yard? No, so just up the millage rate or cut spending or do both in order to shore up the local government.
Not my yard. I don't have a drainage problem in my neighborhood. I also don't have much impervious surfaces in my yard. In fact my yard drains water very well and recharges my well and most likely the overall Floridian aquifer. More than likely your yard does the same. If for some reason you or someone you know were to put up a parking lot in their yard, then yes, that person should have to dig a pond or a pay a tax to offset the new run-off
Quote from: stephendare on November 29, 2008, 07:00:46 PM
And while we are at it, it would be simply brilliant if the council made the process of budgeting totally transparent.
Couldn't have been said any better Stephen. The CIty should make a very public breakdown of expenses each calendar year and let the citizens decide if funds are being wasted or misappropriated.
Quote from: stephendare on November 29, 2008, 06:57:34 PM
I think we need to cut back on the new road construction personally.
I think we need to choke off any more growth to the suburbs, and stop planning or expanding any roads which feed further sprawl.
I also think that we could have great savings by moving our government into the digital age.
Those are good ideas. It will be a while before the Jax Gov goes digital. :-[