Welcome to The Dean's List -- an Ed Dean-style look at who Florida's political achievers were (and weren't) in the last seven days. What you see here is strictly my opinion, not necessarily the editor's or the rest of the staff at Sunshine State News.
THOSE WHO MADE THE LIST
The Florida Senate. The Dean’s List has been critical of the Senate over its take on Medicaid expansion but it does deserve some kudos. The Senate proposed a tax-free, back-to-school holiday of 10 days and a one-year sales tax exemption on college textbooks. This idea had bipartisan support with Democrats joining the GOP here.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. This Democrat has a liberal reputation, but his latest move looks more like something a fiscal conservative would do. Working on the city’s proposed 2016 budget, the mayor’s office says that revenues may be down this year. That being the case, Buckhorn has opened the door to cutting departments as much as 5 percent and isn’t turning to raising taxes.
Palm Bay City Council. Over the last 20 years, Palm Bay has earned a bad reputation for its high taxes, bad roads, pension problems and no luck in bringing in new businesses. Last year Tres Holton and Jeff Bailey were elected to the Palm Bay City Council. Both Holton and Bailey called for fiscal accountability and promised to turn things around. There are signs that they've kept their word. Underperforming city officials are leaving in droves and Palm Bay's new economic development head Andy Anderson says the business community is starting to liven up.
THOSE THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE LIST.
The Florida Democratic Party. Well, the FDP put together a task force to figure out what went wrong in 2014 and its report signaled out local candidate recruitment as a problem, even as it insisted party-hopping former Gov. Charlie Crist and frequent loser former DCF Secretary George Sheldon were the right choices. The rest of the statewide ticket was even weaker. The Florida Democrats aren’t going anywhere if they continue to cling to denial.
Volusia County Council. The Volusia County Council gave a green light to providing incentives for a $100 million outlet mall project that will bring in some big-name retailers. But the word incentive may be a little misleading. In most cases, incentives mean tax breaks or tax cuts. The problem here is that the council’s idea of incentives is throwing $2.25 million for infrastructure improvements on behalf of the mall. The funding is coming through a new source, called a special infrastructure improvement grant.
Palm Beach County Commission Mayor Shelley Vana. Palm Beach County is seeing higher property values, up to as much as 9 percent. According to the property appraiser, if the tax rate remains the same, the county will generate $60 million in revenue. With this extra revenue, Vana says she doesn't support increasing property taxes while calling a sales tax hike proposal "worthy of discussion" to fix roads and parks. But the $60 million additional revenue isn’t enough to fix the roads and the parks? Proponents of the sales tax say it will only be temporary, but communities across Florida have heard that before -- and are still paying the “temporary” taxes.
Ed Dean, a senior editor with SSN whose talk-show can be heard on radio stations across Florida, can be reached at ed@sunshinestatenews.com. Follow him on Twitter: @eddeanradio.
