Over-Paid County Fat Cats Living Large In Hernando

My family first came to Brooksville in 1957 - grandparents, mother, myself, five siblings, aunt, uncle and two cousins from Michigan, along with the Kinderman family (four people). The big draw in Hernando was basically two things: the great weather; and it was cheap to live here, for a fairly nice, quaint region.

There were maybe 20 wealthy families back then, and they seemed to run the county. There was some middle class, but there were a lot of poor people here. The schools were segregated back then; the blacks and whites seemed to live in different worlds.

There have never been a lot of good-paying jobs in Hernando County. I worked jobs here in parts of three decades. Basically, all these jobs were paying minimum wage or a little above it.

These "poor" county workers only make $36,000 a year; a lot of jobs here pay only $10 or less an hour. Let's see - $400 a week times 52 is a little over $20,000 (employers such as Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Kmart, Pizza Hut, Lowe's and such). I think $36,000 is a lot more than $21,000; and $21,000 is not a truly livable wage. But these greedy county people say, hey, we have to get this 3 percent raise a year. Also, the fat cats, who get paid $60,000 or more a year. If everybody else has to tighten down, why shouldn't the county and its employees?

What happened here is investors (flippers) saw that a few people made thousands, so they said "wow" and tried to make millions. They overpaid for all kinds of land around here.

Then the "ol' tax people" licked their chops and raised everyone's taxes (doubled in some areas). They should have waited at least a couple of years before doing so. They knew that there was a good chance things would go the other way.

It was nothing but pure greed!

There are a lot of retirees here on fixed incomes, and these high taxes and insurance are killing them. As you know, a lot of people have left Florida - gone to Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, New York and such - not wanting to or can't pay the enormous taxes for this small country town and one big subdivision (I don't even want to touch that one).

Hernando County is not Palm Beach, Naples, Boca Raton or Fort Myers. It's not even Tarpon Springs or Sarasota - little or poor Hernando.

What really hurts is the trickle-down effect. If you are paying big taxes and insurance, you do not have a lot to spend in local stores, restaurants and such, which hurts the local economy. These so-called fat cats ($60,000 and above and plump kitties, $36,000 to $60,000) should be ashamed of themselves. As for the local politicians who won't listen to the people, throw "the bums out" and the quicker the better.

The people have spoken!

Also, these excessive impact fees should be dropped. They should give people $3,000 for moving in. How's that for a switch?

Fred Trouse

Brooksville