Word!

"Fat Judges Need Not Apply" <--- That this sort of thing needs to be said is sad. I hope the President can rise above such ridonculousness...

FL lawmakers looking to close Green-belt loophole

Just heard on the local news that FL lawmakers are trying to reformulate a good 50-year old law to make it even better for the people of Florida (yay!!) and stick it to the developers who have been abusing it.

There's a law on the books here which gives working farms a tax break on their land, costing them $500 per acre instead of what it would be for residential zones. Well, savvy developers in the last G-d only knows how many years have been taking advantage of this law by grazing cattle in their construction zones before homes are built and sold. This means they can buy several hundred acres of farm land, graze as little as half a dozen cows that they have rented from "Rent-A-Cow" companies, and pay a fraction of what the land should and will be taxed as soon as the cows are gone. We're talking about land that goes for about $250,000 per acre. Economists estimate that these developers legally cheat the state out of $750,000,000 per year in tax revenues. The American Farm Trust and other such organizations are pushing for reform because they say it is unfair to the farmers for whom the tax break was intended.

On the other side of the issue is Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a State Representative from the Miami district, who is also a developer himself, and he (oh-so surprisingly) doesn't see what the problem is. Here's what he was quoted as saying to FOX13 News: "The developer benefits cause he gets a tax break. The cattlemen benefit because they have land to put their cattle on because they have no where else to go. And the county will end up benefiting as well." Yeah, well, there isn't a sentence there that I don't have a problem with for a number of reasons.

Let's hope that FL lawmakers will actually fix this law and close that loophole.

Eminent domain

So, as many people know, the Supreme Court expanded the right of local government to seize property for commercial development. CNN did a story this morning on the effects of this expansion. They highlighted a poor, retired couple, the Vendettis, who own their beach front home in New Jersey. But the city council has tried to seize their property in order to sell it to a developer who wants to put up high-priced condos at more than three times the price that their home is worth. CNN talked to some of the locals who live in the new condos, which sell at 3/4 of a million dollars. One of those, Maura Lucerelli, said, "It has to be developed. It [the new crap] looks gorgeous. It brings income to the community... So I feel bad, where are they going to go? For-- It's very expensive around here. But it's part of life. I mean..." (I would say something extremely disparaging about her character here, but I think she already did it for me...) The Vendettis and thirty other families who are under the same threat are fighting it. They say they will keep fighting until they are dragged out. The good news is that if they can hold out long enough, they might be able to save their houses. The New Jersey legislature (along with those of Florida, California, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois) is trying to pass legislation that will explicitly limit eminent domain and protect property owners. The Governor of Alabama has already signed property protection legislation into law. Federal legislation that will limit eminent domain has also been introduced, by a Republican Senator from Texas of all people... I have yet to read up on any of this proposed legislation, so I don't know how much it limits the new expansion of eminent domain laws, but it's good that they are doing something.

If you live in a state that doesn't yet have proposed property protection legislation and you think they should, go to http://www.c-span.org/states/legislatures.asp?Cat=Current_Event&Code=St_Pol to find links to their official sites. I encourage everyone, even those who live in states with proposed legislation, to go to write their elected officials and make their views heard. It's fun, doesn't take a lot of time, let's them know that they are being held accountable, and it just might make a difference.

If you want to write to your Senators and Representatives in Washington, go to http://www.senate.gov/ and http://www.house.gov/ to find links to write to them.