During the last few years, I have contacted the Highlands County Property Appraiser's office concerning the increased appraised value on properties in the county. I asked the question repeatedly, "since you are raising them drastically during this housing bubble, will you lower them as drastically when the bottom falls out of the housing market?" Their answer, Oh yes, we will definitely lower them if that happens. Well fellow residents, have you seen any drop in your appraised value? According to the newspaper, TV and radio, prices of homes in Florida have dropped 20-40 percent in the last year. When exactly do you think they are going to do what they told us they were going to do? If any of you are in agreement with me and others I have spoke to, please let's join together and force our county officials to live up to what they are suppose to do. ...more

November 14, 2008

Florida voters last January approved Amendment One, which mandated an extra $25,000 homestead exemption on top of an existing $25,000 tax exemption on homestead properties. ...more

November 11, 2008

Settle down, supporters of President-elect Barack Obama. The headline above is not a prediction of what the Obama administration, backed by a solidly Democratic Congress, will accomplish. We've learned from decades of political observing not to place much value in the campaign promises of presidential candidates. They haven't help much when trying to predict what they will do once in the Oval Office. ...more

November 8, 2008

3:03 p.m.: Hillsborough County Property Appraiser Rob Turner is in the midst of a final push to get out the vote. He is visiting voting precincts from one end of the county to the other. ...more

November 4, 2008

West Coast 'Lite' Regarding "Clean Florida's Air with New Rules" (Our Opinion, Oct. 24): ...more

November 2, 2008

A Tampa home was badly damaged by a fire this morning. Residents managed to get out of a burning two-story single-family house at 308 W. Francis Ave., said Capt. Bill Wade of Tampa Fire Rescue. ...more

October 31, 2008

When he moved to Bridgewater in 2005, Mark Spector paid more than $350,000 for his home on Bridgegate Drive. ...more

October 19, 2008

Two weeks ago, real estate agent Steve Fruit was examining the value of a Lake Placid house for the owners, who are thinking of selling. For tax purposes, the Highlands County Property Appraiser had valued the property at $254,769. ...more

October 19, 2008

He was looking at a 30 percent increase in commercial property taxes. ...more

October 4, 2008

Congressional candidate Tom Rooney and his wife, Tara, owned two properties in 2007, and received homestead exemptions for a $410,000 house in Tequesta and a $315,000 house in Jupiter. ...more

September 30, 2008