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Hernando Today

Fixing What We Paid Others In Tallahassee To Do

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 26, 2007

I attended the meeting at the VFW in order to find out what Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio had to say. I was all primed to leave angry, but it didn't happen.

A feeling that I thought that I had lost forever returned. The very first time in my life that I voted, it was for Jack Kennedy. For the rest of my life, I have voted for what I hoped was a lesser of evils. He had a passion that everyone felt. I am not saying that Rubio is another Kennedy. The point I wish to make is that when he spoke, I felt the passion again coming from him that was real.

I will never forget my father saying to me in the early 1950s "here comes a rising star," referring to J.F.K. Time will tell if Marco Rubio is a "rising star." What he had to say was not just about property tax reform. He is very aware of the problems Florida has. His disappointment was real and visible regarding the performance out of Tallahassee this past year.

The meeting was about what the people of this state need done. It wasn't Democratic or Republican. Our own Rep. Schenck was there. Not one Senate member was there. Perhaps that was because they knew how we all felt about the picture in the papers of the smiling "People's Governor" standing with the smiling Senate members, in a feeble attempt to convince us that the peoples' two-bit tax reform package was more than the travesty that it was.

Was it snowing that day?

Before last session, I made Rep. Schenck aware that people who had lost their homes due to the eminent domain process had been forced out of "save our homes" causing perpetual financial hardship due to increased property taxes. He went to bat for us and introduced a House bill calling for portability of property taxes for eminent domain victims with a retro-active clause. Anyone on planet Earth would agree that this was the right thing to do.

Did it pass?

Of course not. Rep. Schenck is only one man. The rest of the Legislature felt that the "super exemption" was a shoe that would fit every foot. Well, we all know what happened to that. There must be a crippling virus in the air around Tallahassee that can only be cured in the voting booth. Why should we keep people in office who don't care enough to show up at a meeting to hear our concerns?

Rubio sadly admits that "a people's initiative" may be the only way to fix the property tax mess. Thus, it appears that we voters through the petition process will need to do what we have already paid someone else to do.

David Miesch

Brooksville

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