Taxes, and the great outdoors

Took a little drive Wednesday for a nice walk.

The Dunnellon Trail, which crosses the Withlacoochee River, is a favorite destination when I need to slow down and ponder.

Been thinking a lot lately about open spaces in our community. It’s part of the sales tax discussion, and Commissioner Holly Davis is calling for the county to hire a nonprofit consultant to lead the way.

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I’ll return to that in a moment.

I mean, the question is simple: Do we have enough room to breathe? All this traffic and growth is putting the squeeze on citizens who are eager to get away. Does Citrus County offer its citizens outdoor opportunities? Does the county protect property from being developed?

And should it?

This debate has gone on for years. Voices call for more recreational spaces in the county, more parks, more places for kids, more opportunities to escape the traffic. Other voices say we have plenty of recreation land, and they’re not thrilled about removing property from the tax roll.

Been hearing this statistic for years: 38% of the county is government-owned open land. I’d like to know how much of that is Withlacoochee State Forest. I guess it’s the lion’s share.

Here’s my question: How many people regularly recreate in the state forest? Unless that’s your thing — horseback riding, four-wheeling, primitive camping, or hunting — not much for the rest of us to do there. It’s not like a playground or ballfield. Or even a town square. We’re not (I hope) shooting off July Fourth fireworks in the forest.

So, yes, while it’s true that 38% of our county is government open space, I’d suggest that the bigger advantage is that land will never be developed. The south side of State Road 44 between Inverness and Lecanto would be Citrus Hills IX if not in state hands.

When I first started kicking around ideas for One for All, my original thought was that sales tax revenue could be divided between roads and parks/conservation.

Participants in the Chamber of Commerce sales-tax survey backed that up, but not evenly. Nearly twice as many supported road repair/widening over land conservation/parks, but both categories found favor.

It’s coincidental that Pirates Cove is on Tuesday’s agenda as well. With the seller agreeing to the county’s offer, that seems like a done deal. The financials are a little confusing. I couldn’t tell you today how we’re paying for this or what happens moving forward. Plus, $300,000 of the purchase must come from private donors. How does that work?
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And it’s been quite a few months since I mentioned Betz Farm. How can the County Commission look citizens in the eye and talk about taxes for land conservation while selling 300 acres of public land near a high school to a developer who plans a thousand homes?

Commissioner Davis has a lengthy memo accompanying her agenda item Tuesday. I encourage you to read it.

The bottom line: Davis proposes paying North Florida Land Trust $22,000 in taxpayer money for a “greenprinting” study. The actual amount of the proposed agreement is $43,000, but it's a little unclear how the rest is funded. Davis mentioned she has some of it secured in private donations.

The study would, among other things, identify “funding sources” to match state programs that buy development rights from farmers. It allows farmers to keep the land for farming, but they can’t put condos on it.

The idea certainly has merit. “Once you plant a crop of houses, there is no turning back to crops or cattle,” she wrote. No argument here.

It's more than that. The study also leads the community through workshops to decide whether this is what they want in a sales tax. That probably sounds familiar. The Chamber of Commerce just did the exact same thing, only in a much more straight-forward manner.

This isn't about North Florida Land Trust, which really knows its stuff. Those folks can really help us AFTER commissioners vote to place a referendum on the ballot. And Commissioner Davis gets props for giving this a lot of thought.

Still. This seems like a back-door approach to wrest the sales tax campaign from citizens, who were handling it just fine. I’m not going to belabor the point, but we had a process, and it was working. Over 700 citizens participated in that process. The process required commissioners to stay out of it until it came time to vote whether to place a referendum on the ballot. Commissioners whiffed when that opportunity arose, and now the thing’s in limbo.

Commissioner Davis is proposing an entirely different direction. Experts will tell you a referendum has a better chance of passing if it includes a conservation element. People will vote to protect trees. From a marketing standpoint, this may make sense. But is that our goal? Do we ask citizens to support raising taxes for wants and not needs?

So, I’m a simple guy. Here’s how I’d divide it: 80/20. Roads get 80% of the penny sales tax funding, parks/conservation 20%. Propose a spending plan for both and let citizens mull it over. 

Our October weather is incredible, isn’t it? Get out and enjoy this Thursday, friends.

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