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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 18, 2008

Blame Rising Values

Regarding "Portability Won't Cure Tax Ills" (Commentary, Feb. 10):

Why use such an extreme example of market (just) value ($387,252) to assessed value ($46,658) to justify their opposition to Amendment One and the Save Our Homes amendment? This can hardly be called an average or median difference.

This situation, if it actually exists, has to be so far from the norm that it is statistically insignificant. I can't imagine the circumstances where Save Our Homes protection has caused such a vast difference in the market-to-assessed values.

It is my view that rapidly rising property values in some Tampa neighborhoods is the real villain here. That market value may be slipping a bit now, but I doubt the tax assessor will acknowledge it on the tax rolls.

DAVID ROSE

Valrico

Amendment Won't Help

We just went through several months of intense debate over the tax bill that was up for vote in January. This bill completely ignored a group of Floridians that I belong to. In Feb. 2006, I purchased a home in the South Shore area. When I purchased my home the taxes were approximately $5,000 per year. All was well until August when I got my estimated tax bill. It was for a whopping $10,000. Needless to say I had to take a seat.

The previous owners of the home had fared well from Save Our Homes with very little increase in taxes over the several years they owned the home. Since the home sold, the county reassessed the tax value, and it doubled for me.

My neighbors are paying half of what I pay. I use the same roads, have the same square footage and use the same county services. Retroactive portability of the recently passed tax legislation to 2007 doesn't help me.

Tallahassee, we should be able to do better than this.

R. ESGUERRA

Apollo Beach

Vote For A Change
If Buddy Johnson, supervisor of elections for Hillsborough County, can't make the time to schedule himself or his staff to go around the county to answer questions and show citizens how to use the new voting machines, what does he do to collect a citizen-paid salary?

When Pam Iorio was supervisor of elections it only took a phone call for her or one of her staff to show up for any size gathering to talk about her job, responsibilities and show anyone and everyone how to use a voting machine.

Johnson has tried to put friends on the payroll, expand the elections office budget and now needs to hire an outside firm to show citizens how to vote.

I think it is time to vote Johnson out of office and find leadership worthy of our support. It is time to start getting an honest day's work for our tax dollars.

ROBERT WEISMAN

Tampa

Up The 'Pole Tax'

State Rep. Rick Kriseman (D-St. Petersburg) and state Sen. Ronda Storms (R-Brandon) got my attention with their proposal to place a $1 surcharge on strip clubs to aid the elderly. To me, who abhors such places, it is a great idea that does not go far enough, nor does it do enough.

Men I have interviewed claim to throw down hundreds of dollars each time they visit a strip club, especially guys who are into lap dances. So let us do this "big time" like Texas and make the surcharge at least $5 and use the money mainly on issues related to sexually oriented businesses: educating sexual offenders, helping victims of rape (Texas uses the whole $5 for that), treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS, and then a dollar for Medicaid patients stuck in nursing homes with only $35 a month to spend.

Anything left over could go to funding the arts so that Florida's young people will learn to appreciate genuine theatre, music and dance rather than wasting their time and money watching naked women swing around poles.

ADELE IDA WALTER

Tampa

Highway Robbery

One of the most outrageous criminal acts being tolerated by the police and sheriff's office is the towing of vehicles from private business property for no reason other than to enrich the towing companies and provide kickbacks to the crooked management officials who enter into these contracts with the towing companies

I know firsthand how this works, having been a victim to the tune of $185 for the offense of having my battery die in a shopping center parking lot. When I came back a few hours later, my car was gone. It is not the stores that do this; they are only tenants. It is the property management criminals who will do it as long as cops let them get away with it.

I hate to say it, but they may also be getting kickbacks because these unscrupulous towing companies have no fear of the police. It is government-sanctioned highway robbery!

MICHAEL HANSEN

Tampa

Format Is Getting Old

I want to know what is going on with Tampa Bay radio. I am sick to death - and I'm sure I'm not the only one - of five or six local stations playing "'70s, '80s and more." They all play the same thing, over and over, ad nauseam. Why can't we hear the music of today? And I'm not talking hip-hop and rap, though I like some of those, too. There are many other artists that I'd like to hear, instead of being stuck in the '80s. I liked the music when it was first popular - but enough already.

I would never have bought a version of "I'll Stop the World and Melt with You" if I knew I'd constantly hear it from then to the present. Please, please change your format, stations.

CHERYL KARPINECZ

Tampa

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