FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY AND TAXES

Our Comprehensive Plan mandates that growth must pay for itself. Our laws also require that Martin County is a pay as you go county. We recognize that a good government is one that doesn't borrow excessively from tomorrow to pay for goods and services consumed today.

Florida has shown a predictable history in boom and bust real estate cycles. If we can rely on these lessons of history (and I think we can), we should use the boom markets to fund both necessary infrastructure for existing residents and cash reserves for emergencies and rainy day back-ups for the inevitable bust cycles.

The County Commission majority that was in office during the real estate boom ignored maintenance of existing infrastructure in favor of building new infrastructure to serve the new developments.  Even though I repeatedly warned that the boom would invariably bust, they made policy decisions that were unwise and short-sighted.  At the height of the boom, our annual impact fee collections added up to millions of dollars.  The Commission majority voted to pledge future impact fee collections to borrow and bond money for 20 and 30 years  to build the Green River Parkway, Citrus Boulevard, and the Veterans Memorial Bridge, projects that should have been built by the developers who profited from their construction.

The bust that ensued dropped impact fees down to nearly nothing.  But, we still have those debt services to pay for many years to come.  We have had no choice but to use the tax dollars that were ear-marked for other worthy expenditures/ improvements/ maintenance to pay for our debts.

In their endorsement for my re-election in 2010 and in 2014, the Stuart News called me the one true fiscal conservative on the County Commission. 

Martin County residents can have complete confidence that my actions and votes as Commissioner will be consistent, accountable, transparent, and fiscally conservative.