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 Citizens for Property Tax Reform  http://www.propertytaxreformnow.com/

Citizen tax plan gains momentum
Broker rallies diverse groups around measure expanding scope of "Save Our Homes"

By MICHAEL POLLICK
michael.pollick@heraldtribune.com

There is a feverish race going on to offer alternatives to the Florida Legislature's "Super Exemption" constitutional amendment, which is already plugged into the Jan. 29 ballot.

At the head of the pack is Cuban mortgage broker Bernie Navarro.

The Miami man's group, Citizens for Property Tax Reform, has gotten top legal talent to draft a workable constitutional amendment that they they call the "30-40-50 Plan." The group is also raising money, gathering signatures and scrambling to find volunteer managers for each Florida county.

Navarro and his chief supporters plan to meet soon with another citizens action group with deep west coast roots, the Florida Taxpayers Alliance.

"We need to unite under one cause," Navarro said Tuesday. "If we really want to effect change we need to get behind something that is researched and has legs to it."

Unlike the Legislature, which needed only slightly more than 100 votes to put its tax reform onto the ballot, those challenging that proposal need 61,000 signatures just to get their amendment reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court.

Then the groups need another 550,000 signatures to get on the ballot, for a total of 611,000, a figure representing 10 percent of the number of people who voted in the last election.

They have just six months to get it done.

30-40-50? What's that?

Across the top of the home page for 30-40-50 is a graphic representation of the Boston Tea Party, one of the flash points for the Revolutionary War.

Likewise, 30-40-50 definitely qualifies for the adjective "revolutionary."

It would force a slashing of city and county budgets throughout the state and require extensive retooling of local government. The amendment would not attempt to dictate spending -- just tax revenues. School revenues would be exempt.

"Since we are bound by having a single issue in a constitutional amendment, the language is very specific," Navarro said. "We can't talk about expenditures. We might get thrown out."

The amendment would leave Save Our Homes unscathed and essentially serve to expand its scope.

The Legislature, in the fast-paced special session that ended Thursday, passed a reform bill providing homesteaders with a new choice in addition to Save Our Homes, which limits the growth in a homesteaders taxable value. The new super exemption can be worth up to $195,000 on a $500,000 home. But it does not apply to businesses or to non-homesteaded properties, the ones carrying the heaviest property tax burdens.

Legislators' other proposal is already law, one requiring governments to roll back their property tax collections by amounts averaging 7 percent. It provides modest relief to everybody who pays property tax, but not enough to suit the tax activists.

Navarro and his two co-founders showed up in Tallahassee for the first day of the special session.

"It was quite sickening, actually, because all you would see is mayors, commissioners, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and they really wanted nothing to happen," Navarro said. "You did not see one other citizens' group, because it is hard for citizens to be there. This petition drive will be the vehicle for that to happen."

Earlier this year, Navarro's group was backing House Speaker Marco Rubio's first stab at reform, which would have involved raising sales taxes to eliminate property taxes..

Citizens for Property Tax Reform members went to Tallahassee four times during the regular spring session to support that plan, Navarro said. "When that didn't happen, we mobilized ourselves and we sprang into action."

The 30 in 30-40-50 refers to the biggest tax break of the three contained in its language: a homesteaded taxpayers 62 or older would pay taxes based on 30 percent of taxable value. Non-senior homesteaders, meanwhile, would pay on 40 percent, and everybody else, including snowbirds, landlords and business owners, would pay on 50 percent of value.

Why give businesses a break?

"Because everybody needs a break," Navarro said. "The taxes have skyrocketed. The burden has shifted to second-home owners and investment properties."

Moving fast

Navarro's main competition, the Florida Taxpayer Alliance, is busily drafting its own set of proposed amendments.

"We now have organizations in over 10 counties," said Dory Kilburn, a Canadian citizen and alliance co-founder who heads a loosely affiliated group of condo associations in the Boynton Beach area. "We are growing, because people find us and then they say, 'We have a small group and we want to make it bigger.'"

David McKalip, a St. Petersburg neurosurgeon who fits his tax-fighting in between trips to the operating room, is another organization's founder. His group is drafting separate amendments to roll back all property taxes,, and then to tell government at all levels how much they can increase their spending each year.

McKalip acknowledged the upcoming meeting with Navarro: "Bernie's group was claiming they can have it on in January, and that would be wonderful."

Clicking on "Who We Are" at floridataxpayersalliance.com, a visitor sees a motley group of smaller outfits that have been stitched together in their tax revolt.

Among them is Kilburn's Boynton Intracoastal Group.

The Canadian, who lives in the country outside Ottawa when she and her husband are not walking the beach near their South Florida condo, said many of her fellow expatriates in Florida "tell me they are leaving."

Like homesteaders addicted to the 3 percent cap on annual increases, the non-homesteaders feel trapped in their homes and by their huge tax bills. In the sluggish real estate market, they are finding it tough to sell, Kilburn said.

"I am hoping that the Florida Taxpayers Alliance will combine all these proposed amendments and that we will have meetings with all these groups and come up with one constitutional amendment that is fairer to all."

Getting ready for a war

Navarro is looking forward to the meeting, but he remains engaged in nonstop efforts to build support from a wide variety of other sources.

"Builders associations, chambers of commerce, radio stations, everybody," he said. "We are getting about 300 to 350 signatures a day. Yesterday was a good day. We got 360. But it is is not going to be enough. We are going to have to kick it up and probably hire a professional company to help us."

Navarro figures it will cost $1 million to get a professional company to verify and sign up half of the 611,000 necessary signatures. He has set up a campaign account to accept donations and opened a campaign office in Miami.

Already past is the hurdle of getting the proposed amendment properly drafted. Citizens for Property Tax Reform hired Hogan & Hartson partner Carol Licko to carry them through the mandatory Florida Supreme Court review. Licko served in Gov. Jeb Bush's administration as counsel and has argued before the court on several occasions.

The group got its petition authorized by Florida Secretary of State Kurt S. Browning on June 11, just as the lawmakers convened their special session.

Just lining up the right lawyer for a touchy subject like a tax revolt was like walking through a minefield, to hear Navarro tell it.

His group made a carefully researched list of the eight top legal experts in the state, only to learn they needed to cross off six who already represented cities.

Navarro laughed through the cell phone as he recalled the situation.

"The cities were not very fond of them taking on these initiatives."

Last modified: June 20. 2007 4:47AM

Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce

SEO Program – The Beat of the City, Session I I IHeld February 25, 2006 at Port of Miami in Downtown Miami, participants discussed Miami-Dade County’s education and social services idustries. Speakers included Frank Bolaños, Member, Miami-Dade County School Board, Mark Rosenberg, Chancellor, State University System of Education and Ruth Shack, President, Dade Community Foundation. All enjoyed lunch aboard Carnival Corporation's luxurious cruise ship "Triumph."
Sponsored by: Alvarez & Marsal and DeVry University

Rubio sets goals, issues challenge

TALLAHASSEE - The first Cuban American to become Florida House speaker vowed on Tuesday to be true to his exile heritage as he challenged his fellow Republicans to build on a decade of leadership in the state legislature by opening a ``new era in that revolution.''

FRIENDS AND FAMILY

The ceremony was also an affair of the heart for many of Rubio's friends and family. Nearly 200 Miamians took a 9 a.m. Falcon Air flight to Tallahassee to attend the event.

Among them were Miami-Dade Republican chairman Mary Ellen Miller, school board chairman Frank Bolaños and county commissioners Rebeca Sosa, Carlos Gimenez, Bruno Barreiro and Natacha Seijas.

By MICHAEL C. BENDER
Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Friday, January 25, 2008

MIAMI — Speaking to a politically powerful Hispanic group this morning, Massachusetts Republican Mitt Romney criticized investment-rating companies for their role in the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and recounted his 18 years as a venture capitalist, including the purchase of a Domino's Pizza from Thomas S. Monaghan.

"He's one of my heroes by the way," Romney, a Mormon, said of Monaghan. "He signed the check over to a charitable group, Catholic Charities, so that he could devote himself to helping make a difference in the lives of children."

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Monaghan is well known in Florida for founding Ave Maria University, which opened in 2002 in Naples as the nation's first new Roman Catholic university in 40 years.

Romney was the first of four Republican candidates to meet today with the Latin Builders Association, the Miami-based organization that claims 700 members. With seating for 240 at a Hilton Hotel conference room, about 170 people attended Romney's 8:15 a.m. speech.

The association has made endorsements in the past, including Republican Katherine Harris in her unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2006, but will not pick a candidate in the GOP primary, the group's president Ovi Vento said.

Romney declined a request from the group to take questions from crowd, instead opting to speak for about 35 minutes. Sen. John McCain, who addresses the association this evening, was the only candidate to agree to a question-and-answer session, said association spokeswoman Frances Bolanos. GOP contenders Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee will also meet with the group.

For the first time since he arrived in Florida on Saturday, Romney made a public comment about the constitutional amendment on property tax changes that Florida voters will decide on at the same time they cast their presidential primary ballots.

"I guess you've got a way to reduce your real estate taxes," Romney said.