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The Villages
Friday, March 29, 2024

It’s time to roll back Sumter County’s 25 percent tax hike

Scott Fenstermaker

Last year, the Sumter County Commission increased our county property taxes by 25 percent. This obscenely large tax increase caused me to look into local politics for the first time. In doing so, I woke up to the fact that the Developer had packed the County Commission (as well as all the key positions in the local Republican Party) with his puppets and that the tax increase was a means of offloading, on to the residents, infrastructure costs that should have been borne by the Developer. This scam gives the Developer hundreds of millions of dollars at taxpayer expense. (For a further explanation, you can take a look at my Sept. 24, 2019 speech to the County Commission, which I recently discovered is on youtube, albeit with my name misspelled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQiReUkH_V4&t=270s ) .

Developer’s Puppet Commissioners Defeated by the EMS Team

As a result of voter outrage over the tax increase and despite the Developer’s enormous spending and dirty tricks, the Developer’s puppet Commissioners (Butler, Burgess, and Printz) were defeated by Republican reform candidates Estep, Miller, and Search (known as “the EMS Team”).  The EMS Team promised to roll back the tax increase, making up the lost revenue by increasing the Developer’s impact fee to a reasonable level.  Residents were satisfied not only by the victory of the EMS Team, but also by the fact  that a criminal investigation of election tactics used by the Developer in his unsuccessful attempt to keep his puppets in office is underway.  See https://www.villages-news.com/2020/11/29/election-fraud-case-could-come-back-to-bite-fake-candidates-and-villages-developer/

Developer’s Efforts to Preserve the Tax Increase and His Sweetheart Impact Fee

Now, it appears that the two remaining Developer puppets on the Commission (Gilpin and Breeden) and County Administrator Bradley Arnold (who was hired by the Developer puppets) are attempting to preserve the Developer’s sweetheart impact fee and derail efforts to roll back the tax increase.  See https://www.villages-news.com/2020/12/01/new-sumter-commissioners-divided-on-raising-road-impact-fees/  As a consequence, I have emailed the following letter to the EMS Team:

An Open Letter to the EMS Team

To: Commissioners Estep, Miller, and Search:

Apparently, the two Developer’s puppets who remain on the Commission are now arguing that raising impact fees would discourage economic growth to the detriment of Sumter County, and therefore, the Developer’s sweetheart rate should be continued and our 25 percent tax hike not rolled back– as you guys pledged to do.  The Developer’s puppets’ argument is absolute B.S., and I hope that you are not buying it. 

A simple explanation of the economic effect of impact fees is found on the Flagler County website (https://flaglerlive.com/44763/impact-fees-faq/):

“Impact fees are generally accepted except by developers and some real estate professionals, who call impact fees a “hidden tax” that slows or discourages growth by pricing people out of homes: if the price of a home is $10,000 or $15,000 greater than it would be without impact fees, some homeowners who might otherwise have been able to afford a house consequently would not.

Impact fees are taxes. They are hidden only in so far as they fall into a large category of “fees” that local governments impose that are indistinguishable from taxes. Semantics aside, they’re not quite hidden: Governments clearly advertise them and, of course, impose them at the time of construction.

The evidence, however, is strongly against the argument that impact fees either slow or discourage growth: Florida’s highest-growth decades followed the imposition of impact fees in the late 1970s. And Flagler County led the nation as the fastest-growing county for several years during the middle of the 2000s despite relatively steep impact fees.

Impact fees may well spur growth and increase home values: while it’s true that impact fees will add to the cost of a house, and that cost will be passed on to home-owners, the higher value of the new house will also improve the values of existing, neighboring homes. In that sense, impact fees raise the value of homes. Existing residents who have presumably paid their impact fee will also be appreciative of a government that keeps their other taxes relatively low, while generating revenue through one-time impact fees on new residents and businesses.

Absent alternative means of paying for growth, the absence of impact fees would artificially lower the price of new construction by shifting the burden of growth’s cost onto existing homes or creating considerable deficits between the impact of growth and available services, thus lowering the quality of life–and with it, home values and the attractiveness of a locality, which would potentially hurt further construction and home-ownership.”

Please do not lose sight of what you were elected to do and be taken in by the Developer’s puppets’ specious arguments.  You need to rollback the 25 percent tax increase (completely if possible) and make up the lost revenue by increasing the Developer’s sweetheart impact fee– to cover not just roads but also ALL county infrastructure necessitated by the Developer’s massive expansion of The Villages.  Your doing so will be your legacy.  Your not doing so will let down the residents of Sumter County and destroy both your reputation and your legacy.  Remember, you were not elected to be friends with the Developer or with the Developer’s remaining puppet Commissioners.  What was going on at the County Commission for a number of years was political malfeasance at its worst.  You were elected to clean it up, not to be nice guys.

Contact the EMS Team to Show Your Support for the Tax Rollback

I would suggest that concerned residents contact Mssrs. Estep, Miller, and Search to show support for the tax rollback.  Contact information is here:  https://www.sumtercountyfl.gov/67/About-the-Commissioners .

I would suggest that you not waste your time trying to convince Commissioners Gilpin and Breeden to roll back the tax increase.  They remain firmly ensconsed in the Developer’s pocket. If it were not for the risk of contracting COVID-19 by being in a crowd, I would also encourage everyone to also attend Commission meetings until the tax hike is rolled back, but that is not a good idea right now.

Villager Scott Fenstermaker is a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com.

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