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Gissendanner Making Another Run For Office

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 12, 2008

Some people have one career, Elton Gissendanner has several. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Weather Service, the U.S. National Weather Service and the Georgia Air National Guard Weather Service. He graduated magna cum laude in 1955 as a doctor of veterinary medicine. He was twice the mayor of North Miami in the 1960s, he was a state representative for two years in-between mayoral terms, he worked on Gov. Bob Graham's staff from 1978-79, and directed the Florida Department of Natural Resources from 1979 to 1987.

A Democrat, he still supports passing the Equal Rights Amendment for women. And he also wants to extend the mandatory school attendance age to 18, which would prevent kids from dropping out of school.

Other issues he's for: home rule for Highlands County, restoring the Everglades, rebates for solar energy installations, a moratorium on increasing taxes on homes and businesses, and restoring the sales tax exemptions on school and hurricane supplies.

Q: The Florida Legislature shifted a chunk of the tax burden to local cities and counties. Was this a good or a bad move? Please explain your answer.

Bad move. However, one has to look at the entire taxpaying ability of local governments as spelled out in the Constitution both ad valorem and non ad valorem taxing powers. Also, school taxes are mostly constitutional driven examples of ad valorem tax. Maximum ad valorem for cities, counties and schools is 10 mills. Each jurisdiction can have additional ad valorem taxes if approved by the people at a referendum.

The 10 mills for each of the entities was purely a political decision - not by merit. No one to my knowledge has really looked at the equalization of this 10-mill formula. I would suggest such a study.

Q: Do you believe Florida's environmental laws are adequate, inadequate or too stringent?

Inadequate but not weak. The laws fail when the bureaucrats driven by politics and lobbyists and other special interests interfere with the administration of these laws. As state representative, I will try to strengthen these laws and rules, being more specific in the administration of said laws and protecting the personnel from such pressures and giving the citizens more power through litigation to force compliance. The eight years of Gov. Jeb Bush were devastating to environmental protection in Florida.

Q: Is Florida's property tax system fair? If not, how would you change it? If so, make a case for why it's a fair system.

The tax system is not fair. It is basically recessive in that percentage-wise poor people pay more. We need further tax relief for business property and nonhomestead properties. We need to eliminate special interest exemptions on sales taxes. Sales tax on food and medicine and services is probably not possible at this time but some states do have it. Also some states have ad valorem taxes on motor vehicles (Georgia). An income tax coupled with a severe limit on ad valorem tax should be studied by a special legislative commission.

Q: Do you support Gov. Crist's deal with U.S. Sugar? Was it handled properly?

I was elated when I learned that the buyout of U.S. Sugar was possible. Gov. Crist just needs to also buy out all of the sugar cane production in the Everglades Agricultural Area. Growing sugar is a very bad polluting business and has been the primary cause of the destruction of the Everglades and the area around Lake Okeechobee. Dairies and other agricultural activities have contributed a lot, but sugar cane with back pumping contaminated water was the start of the poisoning of Lake Okeechobee.

Q: What can you do in the Legislature to keep home insurance rates low in the coming years?

I recommend that the governor and Cabinet be the head of the Department of Insurance and have the power to set all insurance rates and the conditions to be placed on home insurance. There is nothing like having government in the sunshine when it comes to setting insurance rates.

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