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Palm Harbor may incorporate

If you don’t live in Palm Harbor (or at least in North Pinellas County), you may not know this, but Palm Harbor is not an incorporated town, even though it is pretty much built out and is home to around 60,000 people.

All of its services – police, fire, public works and so forth – are provided by the county. It has always been that way.

Palm Harbor has a small historic district

But maybe not for too much longer.  

Bills have been filed in the state legislature that would allow Palm Harbor residents to vote on whether they want their community to become an actual town. If that ever happens, Palm Harbor will become Pinellas County’s 25 incorporated community.

As you might imagine, some residents think incorporation would be a fine idea. Others, of course, feel otherwise. At least some of those who like the idea are represented by the Palm Harbor Coalition. Some people who don’t think it’s a great idea are represented by the Crystal Beach Community Association.

Supporters generally feel that a new town government would be more responsive to the people who live here. Many opponents say they think taxes will go up if Palm Harbor incorporates.

Whether you like the idea or hate it, the people of Palm Harbor will ultimately make the decision. The measure will go on the 2010 ballot if the legislature passes the enabling legislation. And before the legislature can do that, it has to conduct a feasibility study to see if it makes sense fiscally to make Palm Harbor a real, official town or city.

Tags: city, incorporate, Palm Harbor, pinellas county, town

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 4:38 am and is filed under Tampa Bay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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