OMG our milleage rate is only barely above 9?!?

[simms3]

The City Council is debating increasing it by 9% to barely above 10.  People on The Times Union are of course having an absolute cow over it!  I understand people don't want tax increases from any government, but the city government has the most noticeable effect on people's daily lives.

Our milleage rate must be different where my parents live because I am pretty sure it is close to 15 or 16 and used to be 19.  OMG this is why homeowners who can't afford any type of home should be in a rental and let the property owner pass through the overall property tax to be spread around amongst all of the renters.  People complaining about a milleage rate of BARELY 10?  I am pretty sure that there are more cities in this country with an average milleage of at least twice that than not.  This is so pathetic that we have people who understand nothing about ad valorem taxes in this city and what their taxes go to.

Just talking transportation, MARTA in Atlanta is now part of the MPO (Atlanta Regional Commission or ARC) and ARC just did a huge study for future growth to 2040.  It found that there are $169 BILLION of needed transit improvements to fully sustain the future growth and maintain existing infrastructure.  Unfortunately for tranportation in the area there are current and future funding sources for about half of that (so the ARC is trying to find the best mix of capital projects and maintenance/operations).  This is just transit and I am sure Jax is in a similar boat.  I can only imagine about education, police, fire, city services, all of the projects we want downtown, economic development, etc.

Anyone who buys a home should be at capacity to pay for not only their mortgage, but house upkeep, and potential tax increases.  I feel like in Jax more than anywhere else there are so many homeowners who really can't even pay their mortgage let alone keep their house up and pay their taxes (leading to God knows how many clouds on title in this town and liens).

I hope the city council does vote for this very meager tax increase.  Like I said before, I am pretty sure anyone living in waterfront or "certain areas" of the city have been paying a far higher milleage rate and also paying this rate on a much higher valued home.

And just to be clear, I am very conservative.  I practically can't stand anything the Federal government does (except for infrastructure and defense).  I don't even understand half the things the state does.  However, I understand that cities need to pay for themselves, too, and whatever taxes we are paying here are not going to Section 8 projects and huge pension plans (even though that's been in the news that is a minute problem here compared to other cities and of course the bloated federal government).  I wish people were a little more educated and quit their absolute bitching.  It's at least just as much their fault they can't afford their own home as it is their lender's.

Sorry for the rant, but this whole thing has me irritated.  Too many idiots in Jax (and if you are poor, which I don't necessarily have a problem against, but if you are poor AND an idiot, please please either get educated and correct your mostly self-induced situation or shut up).  I am not usually this harsh, but reading the idiot Times Union readers complaining made me pretty mad.  There are sooooo many dumb people in Jax, a giant sprawling city with a few educated wealthy people and urban educated people basically fighting a huge mass of westsidey/suburban and poor uneducated people all the time about everything, as demonstrated by this website(comprising mostly of urban educated people).

Thoughts?  Do you guys hate me now?  Lol

[JC]

Anyone who buys a home should be at capacity to pay for not only their mortgage, but house upkeep, and potential tax increases.  I feel like in Jax more than anywhere else there are so many homeowners who really can't even pay their mortgage let alone keep their house up and pay their taxes (leading to God knows how many clouds on title in this town and liens).

I am really tired of comments like this!

I went from making $80.00 per hour, broken down like this $43.00 on the check $6.00 in vacation and the rest in pension and health care to making $10.00 fucking dollars an hour.  It is not my fault or the fault of most working class Americans who have seen their income drop so drastically!  I did not have a mortgage because I was not ready to buy, but earning a low six figure annual salary I could have easily afforded a mortgage on a $300,000 dollar house, now, I can afford nothing.  STOP POINTING THE FINGER AT THE POOR, ITS NOT OUR FAULT!

[uptowngirl]

Its because other cities have services that make them worth paying.  Jacksonville doesnt.

It stems back to a decision made in 1935 to keep the lowest taxes in the country in order to attract the wealthy to move here.  That worked out great for South Florida, for a while.

But in North Florida, where low taxation was combined with the racism, ignorance, bigotry and small mindedness of the Ed Ball era PorkChop gang, the wealthy sought places south that were more fun.

We ended up with moderate incomes and no city services as a result.

+1

If the city can afford to give MMs back to the Jags they do not need to raise our property taxes!

[Bativac]

Anyone who buys a home should be at capacity to pay for not only their mortgage, but house upkeep, and potential tax increases.  I feel like in Jax more than anywhere else there are so many homeowners who really can't even pay their mortgage let alone keep their house up and pay their taxes (leading to God knows how many clouds on title in this town and liens).

I agree with you to an extent. But Jacksonville is attractive to people like myself (young with professional jobs) partly because of the low cost of living. I've lived other places and Jacksonville, FL is among the cheapest. I certainly don't live here because of the vibrancy of the urban core, or because of the abundance of opportunities for cultural enlightenment.

I can think of 3 big reasons I (and my family and several friends) live here: low cost of living; environmental characteristics (parks, beaches, etc); and proximity to family. If taxes start creeping up, they remove 33.3% of my reasoning for staying in town. Other places, with more to offer to go along with their higher tax rates, start to look a lot more attractive.

Also, it's tough to convince somebody living just above the poverty line, who has owned a small home for 15 or 20 years (because Jacksonville is one of the few places in Florida where homes were still reasonably priced), that their taxes need to be increased to pay for transit, or downtown revitalization, or mowing medians. Those people are still trying to scrounge together the cash to pay for roof repairs that aren't covered under their insurance, or that will result in their insurance dropping them if they report a claim.

I am not saying taxes shouldn't ever go up. But I do totally understand why people take issue with it. I will also add that the "enlightened urban crowd" doesn't do itself any favors by talking about the "Westsidey/poor uneducated people." Home ownership is not, nor should it be, the privelege of the wealthy elite.

[disclaimer: I am a registered independent who votes libertarian / conservative.]

[north miami]

Some will pay anything for low taxes

[uptowngirl]

I can pay more taxes- what is the city going to provide? As it is now I cannot get the storm drains cleaned so the whole block floods, the road outside my house to 8th or 1st st is full of sink holes growing by the day, my trash does not always get picked up, I am surrounded by vacant lots that are overgrown with the property owner not giving a flip since the city demolished the structure, my library hours have been cut, my local schools are getting F's, my street lights are being removed or the burned out bulbs not replaced, my auto registration and tags have gone up, my storm fee has increased, etc etc what am I getting from the city in return? When my service is already crappy? When my dollars are going to pay the JAGs and the Parking Lot owners? To build an unneeded monsterous new courthouse? To demolish historic structures and whole neighborhoods? No, I do not think I need to be hit up for more taxes, no not at all. Instead of going back to the trough, how about some economizes and not cutting cash influx from sportsteams or paying out for vacant parking spaces???!!!

[iluvolives]

If we had leadership in place who had vision for our city and could lay out a plan that would get us on track to that vision- then I think most people would be happy to pay a little more in taxes. People don't like paying more for things if they aren't getting more in return.

[simms3]

I agree with pretty much everyone here.  I realize one of if not the biggest draw to people moving to Jax is our low COL and low taxes.  In a sense that's great.  But not to sound elitist, look where that's gotten us.  Even with our cheap everything we still have almost the highest amount of foreclosures and delinquent mortgages in the country.  The city is in major poorhouse and even in good times it shows.

I think maybe if we just stepped up our millage rates a tad we might see some differences.  If you live in Charlotte, the average city mills there are not that high (around 11-13) and they are pretty progressive with Community Improvement Districts, which obviously increase the taxes for those areas.  Look at where Charlotte is going.  Atlanta is sitting at about 18-19 mills and when you include school and state taxes for people living in Atlanta, the rate moves up to 42 (and with GA's poor schools and explosive growth, even that's not enough).

So our city rate is half of Atlanta's and our school rate is about 7.  That brings us to around 16 total mills here in Jacksonville.  Here at Metrojacksonville we do talk about low cost solutions to everyday problems, which is great, but in this economy the city can barely afford those.  With our rates and in a good economy, I doubt the city can even think much about matching funds for a good transportation system, a new convention center, a multi-modal hub, incentives, fixing our urban parks, etc etc etc.  I don't think throwing money at public schools necessarily solves that issue, that's a separate rate and a separate issue, but the city does need to look at more progressive cities like Atlanta, Nashville, and Charlotte on how to set up a better tax structure with CIDs and the like to improve the bones of the city and to help attract white collar jobs etc. Even with our low taxes companies aren't clamoring to come here without huge incentives, so obviously all low taxes is getting Jacksonville is a lower income resident who moves with or without a job secured, but with the dream of cheap homeownership that he or she can afford. 

I really do hate sounding elitist and I know it takes everyone to make the world go round, but this is a forum where we all voice our opinions, sometimes no matter how controversial, and I don't think my opinion in this case is too controversial.  I would like to see Jacksonville become an attractive place for young professionals to relocate to, and young professionals expect job advancement and opportunity to make good money with hard work and they have relatively expensive taste and usually an urban mindset.  Right now Jacksonville has close to nothing to attract these young professionals because even though oddly we have one of the highest per capita GDPs in the South, we have a lower ceiling on income due to a heavier mix of blue collar jobs, we have little to offer in the way of vibrant urban neighborhoods like a Midtown Atl, and we aren't attracting the attention of most of the companies these people are looking at.

Thanks for the tidbit on Toney Sleiman.  Every little thing I hear about him routinely confirms my opinions about him being kind of slimy.  Yea Toney, where are these retailers you speak of?  And our prayer crazed City Council members!!  Some of them are so dumb that they don't even know how to be corrupt or end up any richer for serving on the Jacksonville City Council even though there are so many slimeballs in this city like Toney Sleiman who are willing to cut them deals (for something in return of course).

As Republican as I am, Jacksonville needs someone as visionary as Shirley Franklin (who I got to meet last night at a ULI awards event) for mayor and a millage rate that is at least above 10.  We can quit being the ultimate destination for everyone in this country who bases their moving decisions on where they can afford a suburban home in FL and start being a destination where people move to because their medium-high paying job relocated them here or they see tremendous opportunity here.

[Keith-N-Jax]

So low taxes tear down structures, build pocket parks, waste thousand on studies and then never do anything with them,etc. Hmmm didn't know that. I'll gladly pay higher taxes when we can get some people in office who will not waste it away while the rest of the world leaves us in the dust.

[vicupstate]

Taxes are like most everything else, you get what you pay for.  Yeah, there is waste but every government has that to one degree or another. 

Jax isn't the city we all want it to be because it has no leadership.  If taxes are too low to provide a reasonable quality of life, that is merely a SYMPTOM of the bigger problem, a leadership void.  Jax has many times supported higher taxes when a visionary case was made for it. The BJP and the Sales Tax for Tolls vote are two examples.   

[CS Foltz]

BJP was pushed through by Delaney in an off election year and the voter turnout was around 12%! So you could say 12% of the total electorate said ......OK! But what about the other 88% that said nothing at all? Courthouse was voter approved for $190 Million to be spent...................cost now is $350 and I would about bet the house that it will be more than that when over and done with! Either way we go, with no leadership and no clear vision and a means to fund anything, the voters are basically screwed! The Mayor does nothing much except Fee and Tax and those are not allways the correct answer............what about controlling abuse and wastefull spending? What about projects that get taxpayer money and then the Council rubber stamps interest only payments for ten flipping years? Government at the local level needs to get realistic and accountable real quickly or else round file those that do not represent the voters who voted them into office! Term limits, at a minimum, would help keep those that wish to gorge at the public trough weeded out..........IMHO!

[tufsu1]

Its because other cities have services that make them worth paying.  Jacksonville doesnt.

I am confused....are you saying that we would have better services if we agreed to a higher millage....or are you implying our millage rate is currently too high given the services providd...please explain?

[uptowngirl]

Hey, maybe we are looking at this all wrong. Perhaps the services the city supplies are fantastic!

I suppose if giving the Jags MM's, your friends thousands for useless studies, paying out thousands to parking lot owners DT for vacant spaces-while working diligently to keep anyone but the homeless or Sunday church goers out.

It all makes a little sense, see the city decimates a  children's inner city library and at the same time spends hundreds of thousands on building a gigantic new courthouse, giving the construction jobs to out of towners. So we take education and jobs away from our own lower income folks, and build a giant courthouse to prosecute them when they finally turn to criminal activity due to not having an education or any job opportunities.

GO JACKSONVILLE!

[CS Foltz]

uptowngirl +10!