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As Palm Beach County gets ready to raise taxes from $3.78 to $4.37 for each $1,000 of taxable value, the PB County Tax Appraiser, Gary Nikolits, will be increasing the assessed value of your homesteaded property if your market value is higher than its assessed value. So, you can very well get screwed and have to pay much more that you ever thought in this down market.

Lake Worth, as you know, has been increasing its fees across the board. They have been looking at every possibility to increase everything imaginable. Every time the city’s favorite employee opens his mouth it is to raise a fee somewhere or to cut lifeguards. We have no idea what is in store for us when the new Budget is formulated but I doubt if it will be pretty. More than likely, the Commission will be convinced to raise taxes. They will be told that there is just no other solution. In the meantime, Mark Bates is under a lot of pressure and an impossible goal to come up with a budget that will make everyone happy.

Property values are down nearly 24% in Lake Worth and we simply are not getting enough revenue to operate. With stormwater now on our ad valorem along with solid waste, it appears that all residences within our City pay the same rates for those services whether their assessed value is $30,000 or $700,000. You can make $6,000 a year on social security or be a millionaire; it doesn’t matter. It was a concocted simplistic idea to collect revenue. Fair was not in the equation.

Our CRA is worried that they will no longer be able to waste taxpayer money for their pet projects like $15 million dollars on two roads or giving a favorite son $20,00 for a commercial grant. Our Commission sits around and dreams up ways to spend $5 million on “improving” and changing our beach parking, a totally unnecessary expense. Everyone in government wastes money. It’s sort of like, “well, if its’ sitting in an account we had better spend it or we will lose it.” That is the mentality of at least one CRA member who said that at a public meeting. At least it is not quite as bad as Lois Frankel--nothing is that bad.

No one ever looks at efficiency and waste. No one wants to say "NO" to the Unions as an example, those who have broken the backs of Lake Worth as well as the nation in many industries where once America was supreme. The Police Union is what caused us to lose our very own police department, the first step to getting rid of our Charter. The solution is always to raise rates on utilities, recreation, fire, police, etc. When you think of the wasted money just in our Water System, as an example, it is mind boggling. Our electric utility rates are nearly 30% higher than FPL’s. Where is all the bond money? It is always the taxpayer that is caught in the cross-hairs of an inefficient government.

I have always been a firm believer that those who live here year round should get the benefit, just like in our beach decals. Bob Weisman, County Administrator, said that the Save Our Homes Amendment is vanishing because of the property values dropping. Weisman thinks that this is a good thing as “it is eliminating the imbalance between the long-term homesteaded and the non-homesteaded…” There is nothing good about the possibility of equity in your home disappearing and all your investment gone.

As the economy crumbles, all of us get poorer and more than 6 million Americans lose their jobs while the Federal government imports more than 2.5 million foreign workers. Anything wrong with that picture?

We struggle to pay our mortgage and we are told that we will have to pay more for everything. The cost of all services go up; taxes go up; the losers get bailed out; non-Americans get coddled and the normal guy who has struggled to live within his means, trying to do everything right, pays the price.

Is there anything wrong with this entire picture?