Letter To Friends Warns Not To Move To Hernando County

Editor's note: The following letter was sent to the friends of Sherry and Walt Searle of Spring Hill and is reprinted here at the authors' request.

Dear friends,

As you know, we retired here from California about five years ago and know several of you were going to retire in this area also. Please reconsider where you are planning to retire because the following has been happening the last five years that we have been here.

In Spring Hill, they attach a school tax to your property taxes. Our property value has gone down but our property taxes increase each year. They are building more new schools, two this year. Administrators and teachers are getting raises, but as you know we don't. There have been a lot of issues in the police department with officers either being fired or resigning for wrongful actions. Note: They always seem to put these people on paid leave and then get rid of them at a later date. It doesn't make sense that our taxes should be used for these individuals to get an extra paid vacation before they leave.

The fire department is just as bad. They have an isolated Spring Hill fire department that is not under the county fire department, so they can just about operate anyway they feel. This is a union shop and you know how unions are. If you question any of their decisions, well you know they are above questioning. We will be voting to combine them with the county to save cost, but you can bet there will be a lot of resistance there because these people don't care about the cost to the taxpayer, they are union employees and make a lot more money than most people in this area.

There are no real factories in this area, so most people make the minimum wage except fire, police, county and state workers. Just to show you how bad it is getting here, now they are going to charge for fire or police calls, the very thing that I thought we were already paying taxes for. They say they will bill the insurance company, and it will be no cost to the taxpayer. That is a laugh because you know that any increase that is given to the insurance company or business for that matter is always passed on to the taxpayer.

I don't think our county commissioners have a clue of what is happening here, so they just go along for the ride. To make it short for you, everyone in government is doing well, raises every year, higher property and school taxes to support these raises, all paid by you, and you know you will be on a fixed income so you will have less to live on each year.

Please, friends, if you do consider moving here, then I would suggest you get on the Internet and type in Hernandotoday.com and read for yourself what is happening here.

Sherry and Walt Searle

Spring Hill