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CANDO Fire Fee Position

CANDO opposes the proposal to assess a special fee to pay for fire protection services as a substitute for the current property-tax based funding for the following reasons:

  • Last year Floridians voted to cap property tax increases. The proposed fire fee would not be capped. It could be increased without limit.
  • Unlike our property taxes, the fire fee would be subject to federal taxation.
  • The issue of how to equitably charge or pay for tax exempt properties such as schools, hospitals, city property, etc. has not been clearly resolved in the present proposal.

The fire fee has been described as "revenue neutral," but:

  • There is no way to verify or enforce this principal after the first year.
  • In fact, the proposed fee could not be revenue neutral as claimed since it involves hiring a special consultant for $50,000.
  • The fire fee has been considered by our city commission as one on a list of many ways to increase City revenue in the current budget crisis.

The only advantage of a fire fee that the commission has put forth is that it would increase transparency of the cost of fire services. That would be better achieved by a regularly published budget itemizing allocations for fire and other services.

Florida's Growth Management Plan

In the winter/spring 2008 edition of Florida State University Research in Review there is an excellent article by Parker Neils on Florida's Growth Management Plan which was passed into law by the State legislature in 1985. In 1975 the Local Government Comprehensive Planning Act was passed which required local governments to prepare and adopt comprehensive development plans. According to the article, these plans have been "largely ignored by planners throughout state government" while Florida's population and development have soared, gobbling up pristine "wild areas."

Included in the article is text of a conversation with Tom Pelham, head of Florida's Department of Community Affairs (DCA). Pelham is a land-use attorney who was head of the DCA from 1987 to 1991 and has recently been reappointed to that post by Governor Crist. According to Pelham, efforts to enforce Florida's growth management have been thwarted by lobbying by developers and road builders.

This article is an interesting read for any citizen concerned about local and state-wide urban sprawl and a disconnect by state and local leaders from their own comprehensive development plans put in place to protect Florida's natural beauty and prevent over-development.

For the entire text of the article, click here >>>

Local Issues

Residents are encouraged to attend City Commission meetings whenever possible. Issues discussed during these meetings affect all of us, and our elected officials need to know what the citizens think. The Ormond Beach City Commission meets the first and third Tuesday of each month at 7:00p.m. in the Commission chambers adjacent to City Hall.

Contact Us

If you have questions or need more information about CANDO, contact us at:

P.O. Box 361
Ormond Beach, FL 32175
386-677-1318

or e-mail
postmaster@candoforormond.com