EDITORIAL
City
of Palm
Aire Special Recreation District August 26, 2008 Referendum Reasons
To Vote NO Date:
July 3, 2008 An
Opinion By Valmore R. Lucier On
Tuesday June 24, 2008 we, the representatives of Oasis at Palm Aire
Homeowner Association, appeared before the Pompano Beach City Commission
to request exclusion from the Palm Aire Special Recreation Authority. We
felt that our community had arbitrarily been included in the tax district,
because some of the homes in our complex across the canal from Palm Aire
faced one of their golf courses. There are many complexes in The
meeting was a unique experience to say the least. We knew we had a very
slim chance of success since one of the original architects of the
proposal was now Vice Mayor and, therefore, had a dominant position over
us by being able to vote against our exclusion request. Our
original position was that we did not object to the proposed Palm Aire
Special Recreation Authority Tax District as long as we were excluded from
it, but when the commission denied our request and kept us in the tax
district we were forced to change our position. We were now faced with a
different situation. 167 of our Oasis owners were now going to be
taxed for this district unless we were successful in convincing the
majority of some 7000 Palm Aire Condo owners to also vote NO.
That meant we now had to share with our neighbors the negative aspects of
this proposal that may not be known or understood by many Palm Aire Condo
Owners. To
fully understand the ramification of the proposed district, many current
and historical related factors have to be understood to put in its proper
light the current business case being presented as the justification for
the need of a Special Recreation District and to understand its true
lasting financial impact on current and future owners. Only then can one
truly assess the impact of creating a Special Recreation District on the
basis of “just in case” or “as insurance” to
guarantee the survival of Palm Aire golf courses. The
news media gives us daily accounts of deteriorating economic conditions.
For several months the Florida Legislature has been challenged to reduce
the increasing tax and insurance cost burden placed on all Floridians.
We are all aware of current economic conditions. We are all
struggling to make ends meet.
Some owners are struggling more than others. Those on fixed income
are especially affected. We all face increased taxes, as well as higher
costs for insurance premiums, association assessments, utilities,
prescription drugs, food, and fuel.
Yes, foreclosures are a regular occurrence, too.
Now we
few lucky ones can add one more --
a Special Recreation District taxation authority. The
drafters of the district tell us we can initially expect to pay
$200-$300 in taxes. That’s about the amount of the Other
relevant economic factors:
The construction industry is in chaos.
Building new living units now is insane so we don’t have to worry
at least for the short term about new construction.
But the real and relevant fact that is a major player in all of
this is that throughout the State of In
many cases developers kept the golf courses and made nice profits selling
them later to private contractors. They fell on tough times when revenues
dropped because of current economic conditions and, yes, because of aging
populations in homeowners’ association and condominium association golf
courses. According to the PGA, there is also a steady decline in the
number of golf players moving to Some
will tell you they are setting up a district as an insurance policy;
what they are in fact doing is setting up a “bail out program.” Golf
course owners know that there is a lot of untapped money in communities
such as ours, money that belongs to the property owners who are not paying
a fair share into the golf kitty, in the view of the golf course owners.
It doesn’t matter that their home purchase contract had no such
stipulations. Once
the district is fully operational, all the private golf course owners will
line up to sell their golf courses to the district and then offer to
continue to operate and maintain them for a fee -- a winning proposition
for them at the homeowners’ expense. They also will get top dollar
because they will tell the authority that they have a buyer willing to buy
at a certain price, but that buyer may be thinking of developing the golf
course into something else which really makes the authority want to buy it
first. You
are told that if and when that happens, the district members will have the
opportunity to vote on the issue. Here is how I would sell the public on
voting for the purchase of a golf course. I would tell homeowners that the
district was set up for just such a situation – the “just in case”
argument. I would then tell them if we don’t buy the golf course, the
buyer is planning to re-develop the site. That should do it. If for some
reason the membership voted NO on the purchase, then the reason for the
district to exist has just gone up in smoke unless you don’t mind having
the tax burden associated with the option of again being able to vote on
the purchase of the next golf course that goes up for sale. Otherwise,
it’s business as usual as far as land use conversion, just as though you
did not have a district with one exception:
You’re still paying taxes for that district for the next “just
in case” situation. It
was stated that the district was being created to give the owners at
Palm Aire the opportunity to limit capacity. From my standpoint,
owners of Palm Aire have always had that capability. It is called government
in action through owner participation. If
a new golf course buyer then tries to change the land use, he will have to
come up with a development plan and an environmental impact statement and
go before the City to get approval.
All of the owners can go to the hearing, speak against it, keeping
the commissioners in their chairs listening to them until they convince
the commissioners to deny the new golf course owner’s application. No
different than it is now, but without a tax district.
I know there are those who will tell you that with the right lobby,
money and influence it can be done, but only with owner apathy. If
nobody cares, that’s fine but don’t make me pay for it. Then it is
shame on them. Remember
the only value of the district is that it can buy the golf course;
then you own it and the district forever. Think about new home
buyers or condo buyers. Will they buy at a facility that has association
assessment, a special district tax and the local government taxes or will
they choose to buy property where there are only an association assessment
and local government taxes? As
to the overall cost of such a district over time, I suggest to you that
nobody knows what that will be. To determine the real cost, one needs to
know what the district will incur in cost for the following items: 1.
The legal cost; 2.
Operating administration costs; 3.
The size and salary of the working staff; 4.
The cost of eminent domain purchase; 5.
The cost of the purchases of all these golf courses; 6.
The cost of operating and maintaining those golf courses forever;
and 7.
Cost of bond issues. Until
all these costs are known, the real related tax burden is anybody’s
guess. If
this can get so expensive for so few, then why do local governments
approve these districts, you may ask? The answer is simple.
It gets rid of a headache for local governments and frees them from
being hounded over increased taxes that fall on a very select group. Local
governments welcome the layer of beaurocracy with taxation authority
sandwiched between them and the people. These districts also act as a
welcomed buffer for local governments. From
the best I can determine, the genesis for the formation of the Palm Aire
Special Recreation District emanates from a November 2006 article written
by Katherine Salant entitled, “Golf course living: a retiree’s
dream” where she asks, “How can you be sure that it (golf course)
be there in 20 years?” The
idea of a Special Recreation District took off from there. Now
you have the whole story to help you decide and my reason why I recommend
you vote NO at the August 26 referendum unless you want to be
shackled with an added layer of bureaucracy and a new permanent tax burden
on the assumption that you cannot trust the existing government
mechanisms to protect your interests and listen to you. This
initiative has the making of another Boston Tea Party and we know what
resulted from that. As I said at the hearing, “This GREEN
initiative is not about GRASS
it is about $$$$$.”
And that is my opinion. |