The following resolutions were approved by the Board of Directors of the Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County on February 8th.
A RESOLUTION OF THE CONCERNED TAXPAYERS OF DUVAL COUNTY IN SUPPORT OF ELECTED POSITIONS FOR DUVAL COUNTY
Whereas, it has not been demonstrated that the appointment of representatives of the People by the mayor creates a more efficient or responsive municipal government versus their election.
Whereas, history has demonstrated that the consolidation of the People’s representatives into fewer executive, legislative and judicial offices erodes accountability and responsiveness of governments.
Whereas, residents in Duval County have not expressed a desire of the appointment of offices that are currently elected.
Now therefore:
Be it resolved that the Concerned Taxpayer of Duval County supports the continued election of City Council, School Board, Sheriff, Clerk of Court, Property Appraiser, Tax Collector and other offices as necessary.
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The title of this post is from the song Downtown sung by Petula Clark in the mid 1960s. The song was inspired by composer-arranger Tony Hatch’s visit to New York City in which he extols the vibrant atmosphere of Broadway and Times Square. Having been to New York City, I would agree with this characterization of Manhattan. With its museums, nightspots and Central Park, New York City truly is the city that does not sleep!
If you read the recent Florida Times Union series on downtown Jacksonville, you get a sense that Jacksonville’s political leaders really want to transfer some of that vibrancy to Jacksonville’s city core. According to the Florida Times Union, downtown Jacksonville is essentially dead in the weeknights and weekends and is short on residents and workers. What city leaders envision is a walkable downtown full of shops, restaurants, condominiums and lots of people frequenting and living in them. As usual, this vision requires tax money and city government planning.
Before we go flying off the cliff in our enthusiasm to keep moving forward with this vision, let us pause for a second and ask why we need a vibrant downtown. Even if we agree that the downtown area should be different from what it currently is, is it possible for realize this new vision for downtown? How should we realize this vision? How much taxpayer money are we willing to sink into downtown to realize this vision?
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A fee does the city no good if it doesn’t get paid. That is the issue with the stormwater and garbage fees. According to the Florida Times Union, 17% of the stormwater and garbage fees have not been paid to the city even though it appears to be more like 30% lately. The city would like to reduce this statistic to 5% by adding the fees to your property tax bill. When that happens, failure to pay the fees could get a lien placed on your property. With this motivational trick, the mayor is hoping to persuade Jacksonville residents to pay the unpopular fees.
The up side of putting the fees on the property tax bill is cost savings. The cost savings projected by the Central Operations department is about $737,000 per year. In a tough budget year, that is not exactly chump change. Billing customers is a major expense for businesses which explains why so many businesses like e-mailed billing notices and automatic debits which reduce this cost.
On the other hand, the down side is that the fees become more entrenched as they become easier to collect. Many of us were not happy with the fees mainly because they rolled back the property tax relief provided to us by the Florida Legislature in 2007 and which we taxpayers approved in 2008. Personally and I speak only for myself and not for Concerned Taxpayers, I have no problems with the fees in and of themselves and I actually like the idea of diversifying the city’s revenue base.
However, my problem with the fees is that the political establishment in Jacksonville was not willing to give up its obsession with spending other people’s money even when the Jacksonville taxpayer was clearly being overtaxed. Sometimes, the money is spent on indispensable services like police and fire suppression. Other times, it is spent on government charity and corporate welfare which I believe the taxpayer should not be forced to fund. Until Jacksonville city government restricts its responsibilities to the core functions of government (police, fire suppression, parks, etc) and not whatever pet project some City Council member or Mayor fancies at the moment, I will reject any tax increase that makes hard earned taxpayer money available to politicians to play with. That is especially true in hard times when a failure to pay the fees could lead to the loss of your home.
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