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Archive for the 'Market Trends' Category

J.J. Gandy’s pies

J.J. Gandy’s Pies was on hand, offering up samples of their famous Key Lime pie and other flavors. We tried the chocolate cheesecake pie, and it was great. We’ve written on the website before about J.J. Gandy’s — they are a Palm Harbor company that makes some of the best Key Lime pie anywhere. Many of the best restaurants in the area don’t even try to match J.J. Gandy’s quality — they just buy their pies from J.J. Gandy’s and sell them to their own patrons. You can also buy pies over-the-counter from the J.J. Gandy’s location at 3725 Alt. 19, Palm Harbor. Look for more about J.J. Gandy’s in the “Local Partners” section of my website at www.bethfrederick.com

Tags: j.j. gandy's pies, key lime pie, Palm Harbor

The Melting Pot

Here’s the crew from The Melting Pot — a happy and very helpful bunch. If you’ve never tried The Melting Pot, you definitely should. They offer meat and cheese fondue dishes, as well as out-of-this-world chocolate fondue dessert specialties, to name just a few. The company operates 85 restaurants around the country, but the one that should interest you is at 25822 US19N, on the west side of the road just south of Enterprise.

Counters

Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants

Taste of Palm Harbor

I mentioned a day or two ago that the annual Taste of Palm Harbor event would be held today (Sunday). Bill and I stopped by, walked around, and sampled some of the food that was made available by a number of local participating restaurants. We had a great time and enjoyed the food.

The above picture looks up Florida Avenue, which usually gets blocked off to traffic whenever events are held in Old Palm Harbor.

Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants

More Dunedin tax news

Dunedin officials seem to have gotten the property tax message. Just a couple of weeks ago, city commissioners agreed to a five percent reduction in the millage rate after local property taxpayers demanded some action on tax relief. Now, they’ve bumped that reduction to 7.5 percent.

That means a an overall tax reduction of $411,742. The city’s budget will be $57.9 million.

The city says it won’t have to cut services, but it will have to dig into several city reserve funds, especially the Capital Improvements Fund, the Facilities Maintenance Fund and the Leisure Services Capital Improvement Fund.

Tags: taxes Dunedin North Pinellas County

Orange season once again in Pinellas County

 
It wasn’t too many years ago that North Pinellas County was nothing but orange groves. If you lived in St. Petersburg or some other nearby community, a nice weekend jaunt might be a drive up US19, which back then was little more than a two-lane road, and perhaps stop at a roadside citrus stand for a bag of oranges or grapefruits.

Almost all of those orange groves have given way to housing developments, car dealerships and other businesses. But one roadside stand, Citrus Country Groves, has managed to survive to the present day.

Located on US19 in an unincorporated part of Pinellas County at the corner of Belleair Road between Largo and Clearwater, Citrus Country Groves has soldiered on, offering small cups of free orange juice, bags of citrus fruit and all kinds of touristy gizmos to send back or take back to the friends and neighbors up north. There is even an active orange grove of several acres out back, lcated on what now is pretty expensive real estate.

This year, the owners of Citrus Country Groves took the signs off the building, and people were worried that Citrus Country Groves might have finally decided to sell out. But the owners say the signs were removed only to make it easier to paint the building.

The seasonal business is set to open on schedule, on Oct. 23.

Citrus Country Groves is a Pinellas County landmark. Stop by for a glass of orange juice, and take some home with you while you’re at it.

Counters

Tags: florida oranges, pinellas

Can you stand another tax story?

I don’t know whether I can or not, but people are sure interested in what’s going on around here property tax-wise.

Anyway … the city of Clearwater isn’t avoiding the great property tax debate. Tonight, city commissioners will meet (that’s Thursday night, September 21) to talk about budget issues for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. And they are likely to lower the tax rate a bit more. Earlier, the commissioners lowered the millage rate from 5.75 to 5.42, and it looks now as though the council will be lowering the rate some more, this time to 5.25.

The council is expected to meet again in the near future to discuss whether some city services will have to be cut because of the property tax cuts. City officials have pointed out that the city is dealing with increased costs like everyone else, costs that include higher fuel costs, higher insurance rates and increases in city pension contributions.

Tags: Clearwater, taxes

… And even more on taxes

 In my last post (about property taxes in Dunedin) I mentioned that Pinellas County property tax revenue will go up this year by $148 million simply because property values have gone up so much.

Now, Pinellas County has taken steps to reduce property taxes in response to pressure from county taxpayers.

Yesterday (that would be Tuesday, Sept. 19), county commissioners agreed to lower property tax rates to a level that hasn’t been seen since around 1990. The action came during a County Commission meeting that was attended by more than 250 taxpayers, some of them a bit irate.

The commission agreed to lower property taxes by 10.3 percent. Many of the taxpayers in attendance said they wanted even deeper cuts, but the commissioners said it was too late in the budget cycle to reduce taxes more than that. They said the state of Florida will have to get the message from angry taxpayers if property tax rates are to go down any more — the state has dealt with its own tax revenue problems by pushing a lot of revenue requirements down to the local level.

What the lower tax rate will mean is around $36 million less in revenue for Pinellas County. Commissioners say they will have to make budget cuts and make cuts in programs and staff to meet the new spending limits.

Still, the Pinellas County budget stands at $1.926 billion for 2007. That’s Billion, with a “B”.

Small business owners have been particularly hard-hit by increasing taxes. If you have a small business that owns property, you don’t enjoy the benefits of the annual cap on property assessments that apply to homeowners who occupy the homes they own.

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If you’d like to see what area people are saying about taxes, go to www.itsyourtimes.com and scroll down to “taxes are killing us.” Itsyourtimes.com is a blog run by the St. Petersburg TIMES.

Tags: North Pinellas County, taxes

More taxes, this time from Dunedin again

Now, the City Commission has reduced the tax rate even more, in response to angry local taxpayers who are upset (like everyone else) about increasing property taxes.

Throughout Tampa Bay and across Florida (and beyond Florida, as well), taxpayers are getting up in arms about property tax rates. In this area, at least, the culprit is exploding property values. Home valuations have shot up, and that increase in value results in higher property taxes.

Here’s an example of what that means locally; Pinellas County will rake in $148 million more in tax revenue this year without having to increase tax rates one bit — the huge increase in property tax valuations is at fault.

Anyway, back to Dunedin: A few days ago the City Commission voted to drop the millage rate by 5 percent in response to angry taxpayers. Scores of taxpayers showed up at a commission meeting and pleaded with commissioners to provide some relief. And the commissioners said at the meeting that they will consider additional tax rate cuts, even thought the result may be cuts in city services.

Across the region and the state, it is looking more and more like a full-fledged taxpayer revolt in the making. Stay tuned.

Tags: Dunedin, pinellas county, taxes

Baby Boomers will still come to Florida

Florida’s real estate market may have slowed up, but it still has an undeniably rosy future. That according to Richard Hokenson, a former Wall Street economist who spoke last week in Tampa Bay.

Hokenson stated the obvious during his speech, saying that the huge tidal wave of Baby Boomers coming up on retirement will ensure a healthy real estate marketplace in Florida over the long term.

“There’s a baby boom tsunami and a fixed supply of coastal land,” Hokenson told his audience.

What’s the biggest threat to retiring baby boomers’s plans for the future? Hokenson says it’s their ability to get rid of what he called “NIKES” — No Income Kids with Education.

Tags: baby boomers, Florida

When is a tax cut not really a tax cut?

If you live in Dunedin, you are about to find out.

The Dunedin City Commission has voted in favor of lowering the city’s property tax millage rate from 4.425 to 4.29 per thousand. Normally, that would mean a modest decrease in property taxes. But because property values have gone up so much lately, the property taxes for Dunedin homeowers are likely to go up rather than down.

Still, the cut in the tax rate is a good thing, and should prevent major hikes in Dunedin property tax bills.

City staffers had recommended that the millage rate stay the same, saying the city could use the extra money for various programs. But the City Commission overruled them.

Still no final vote by the City Commission, but if they maintain their current course, the change in the millage rate would take effect in October.

Tags: Dunedin, property taxes