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Article Courtesy of The Tampa Bay
Times
By C.T.Bowen
Published April 17, 2016
NEW PORT RICHEY — What if the tax collector didn't collect
your taxes?
It is a question now looming in Pasco County after Tax Collector Mike Fasano
said he won't sign an inter-local agreement with the Pasco County Commission to
collect a planned $135 annual assessment from nearly 1,600 property owners in
Heritage Lake Estates and the Oaks at Riverside in west Pasco.
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The assessment, scheduled to begin in the tax
year starting Oct. 1, is the first of 15 yearly installments to
reimburse Pasco County for acquiring 41 undeveloped acres. The
purchase of the wooded land on Amazon Drive quieted public
opposition to a controversial zoning issue in which the private
landowner sought to build apartments in an area filled with
single-family homes.
The county used $3 million from a general revenue reserve
account to buy the land for use as a potential passive park and
to curb neighbors' fears that the apartment buildings would
exacerbate street flooding. The county completed the transaction
in summer 2014 after state Reps. Richard Corcoran, R-Land
O'Lakes, and Amanda Murphy, D-New Port Richey, secured $1.5
million in the state budget to pay half of the cost.
A year later, however, Gov. Rick Scott vetoed that unspent
appropriation and a second $1.5 million installment intended to
complete the reimbursement to the county.
Last month, Scott repeated that scenario by
vetoing $3 million for the project.
Fasano wants to try again. On March 29, speaking during the
public comment portion of the Pasco County Commission meeting,
Fasano asked the county to wait one more year before beginning
the assessment, contending that Corcoran, slated to become
speaker of the Florida House of Representatives after the
November election, may have more leverage with the governor in
2017.
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Tax Collector Mike Fasano wants the deal delayed for a
year.
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"I hope I don't have to sign it," he told commissioners about the agreement.
Commissioners did not respond.
A day later, Fasano was more emphatic. "I'm not signing that baby,'' he said in
an interview. "One more year is not gong to make or break them. I'm hoping the
County Commission will agree with me to wait.''
"That's going to make it an easier decision if he's not going to sign the
inter-local,'' Commissioner Jack Mariano said when told of Fasano's remarks.
Corcoran said he didn't know if his new role as House speaker will change the
governor's position on the project.
"I don't know if that's a lot of a difference. I think the governor is making
his decision on what he thinks is best for the entire state,'' he said.
Corcoran, however, said residents shouldn't have to foot the bill.
"The county ought to pay for this property, and they ought not to assess the
owners,'' Corcoran said. "I think what Mike (Fasano) and I are both saying with
a megaphone is, 'Don't assess these people.' "
Fasano's stance leaves commissioners with the options of granting a one-year
grace period, or having the county send out the assessment notices and collect
the payments itself. That is the method formerly used by the county on
neighborhood road-paving assessments. The bills and payments came directly to
and from the county and didn't involve the Tax Collector's Office.
"We could go that way,'' said Mariano. "But if Speaker Corcoran thinks it's
something he can get done this time, that may give us the comfort level of
waiting instead of setting it in motion.''
Later, Fasano said he believed the entire process would have to be repeated
because the resolution forwarded to his office from the county contained an
error — it referenced an unrelated assessment for a different neighborhood. |
