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County commissioners question a fellow commissioner's plan to raise $20-million as an anti-tax crowd looks on.
By JAMES THORNER
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 6, 2001
NEW PORT RICHEY -- A plan to raise property taxes to pay for parks materialized almost out of nowhere at a Pasco County commissioners meeting two weeks ago.
The proposal appears to be disintegrating just as quickly in a blast of anti-tax sentiment.
"I feel strongly compelled to distance myself from the idea. I don't like the idea," commission Chairman Steve Simon said at Tuesday's meeting in New Port Richey.
Commissioner Ted Schrader also questioned the tax, which would cost the owner of a $100,000 home another $18.75 a year. Schrader said the tax is unfair to property owners who would barely use the parks.
"It's more fair to assess the folks who actually use it," Schrader said in support of an alternate plan to charge fees to park visitors.
Down the dais from Simon and Schrader, Commissioner Peter Altman, the originator of the quarter-mill tax proposal, covered his face with his palms as his plan seemed to unravel.
Altman reminded his colleagues that he thought they were trying to dodge "hard choices," referring to a study that suggested Pasco spend a minimum of $40-million on new parks in the next 10 years.
A proposed $892 impact fee on new homes would raise about $20-million. Altman's park property tax, called a municipal service taxing unit, or MSTU, could raise the other $20-million.
"We were elected to make the hard decisions," Altman said. "This isn't gingerbread. These are minimum park standards."
Though lukewarm on the tax, commissioners agreed to let Altman continue to plead his case. Hearings on the ordinance establishing the MSTU will start at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Dade City.
"I think we owe it to the people to at least introduce this," Schrader said. "Then we can vote it up or down."
Simon made no bones about how he would vote. He worried that introducing so many impact fees and taxes in a year would try the patience of the public.
The board approved a $1,694-per-new-home school impact fee in February and plans to vote on impact fees for parks and libraries later this year.
"Methinks we go to the well too often," Simon said.
He proposed raising park money through a 1-percent sales tax. The Penny for Pasco tax, which could raise an estimated $22-million per year, could go before the voters on a 2002 referendum.
Simon and Commissioner Ann Hildebrand also wondered why Altman's tax plan wasn't capped at a quarter-mill or allowed to expire once park needs were met.
Though admitting the chances of passing the tax were less than rosy, Altman vowed to press his case at the public hearings.
Altman said he has written off the support of Simon, a Democrat who expects to face an anti-tax Republican when he runs for reelection next year.
During the debate on the park tax Tuesday, a crowd of Republican activists from Pasco sat in the audience in opposition to the proposal.
Altman urged his colleagues to risk political popularity to solve what he called a "crisis" in the park system. He offered his career as mayor of New Port Richey as proof that politicians can survive controversial votes.
"I've had the benefit of six elections where I heard those same kind of threats," Altman said.