Gary Pinnell's informative article of Dec. 2 points out that the good old boys on the County Commission want to tax your Internet purchases made in other states, increase your license plate fees and curtail your homestead exemptions. What a shock! The County Commission has been riding a tax and spend gravy train consisting of double digit annual spending increases for years. This has funded years of very generous annual pay raises for all employees, $3,000 bonuses for the Sheriff's Office, the elaborate unnecessary ball park, the road to nowhere (also known as the Sebring Parkway or Carl's Catastrophe), a new layer of top level bureaucrats and thousands of dollars worth of stolen, lost and/or misplaced taxpayer funded property, etc. ...more

December 7, 2009

Gov. Charlie Crist sent up a trial balloon this week to see if a proposed property tax reform package will either fly or get deflated. ...more

February 19, 2009

Like me, many people will reduce their income to barely one third of the original upon retirement. It may be a health issue or just a choice that should be respected. After all, the law allows one to do that, after 65 years of age, with the return of one's Social Security contributions. ...more

December 1, 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

Last week, Tom Rooney criticized Tim Mahoney for living in a barn. This week, it turns out that the Republican challenger had listed his home address at the Palm Beach Kennel Club from December 1998 to December 2003. ...more

September 27, 2008

A recent editorial in this newspaper accused the governor and Legislature of engaging in a "con job" to trick citizens, and quoted local government officials cynically twisting the facts to cast blame for the lack of real property tax relief for Florida property owners. ...more

September 26, 2008

Highlands County commissioners said they would take one last look at more possible cuts in the county's proposed budget for next year. And all but one constitutional officer said that if they must make cuts, they will. But the harm these cuts would have on our county would far surpass any supposed benefits they would bring. ...more

September 7, 2008

City Manager William Poe said it really wasn't that difficult putting together a city budget that cuts spending by nearly $400,000 without cutting services. ...more

September 6, 2008

Efforts to place on the 2008 ballot a property tax to help the county conserve environmentally sensitive lands appeared to be dead late Wednesday afternoon after its backers conceded to a county advisory commission that the worsening economy would dampen its support. ...more

August 1, 2008

County commissioners on Tuesday set a tentative tax rate of $5.43 per $1,000 of property valuation for the 2008-09 fiscal year, the same rate homeowners paid this year. ...more

July 24, 2008