You are not directly voting on the GreenLight Plan. You
are voting to make Ordinance 13 -34 a law.
This Post continues a series where we look at The Sales Tax
Ordinance, Ordinance 13- 34, and compare it to what is being said by the sales
tax supporters.
Here is a link to the actual Ordinance (Law) that you are
being asked to approve in the sales Tax Referendum: Greenlight
Pinellas Tax Ordinance.
Section 9. Severability. If any
section, subsection, sentence, clause, phrase, or provision of this Ordinance
is for any reason held invalid or unconstitutional by any Court of
competent jurisdiction, such holding shall not be construed to render the
remaining provisions of this Ordinance invalid or unconstitutional.
This Section is
extremely important in this Ordinance given its poor construction. Legal
challenges are almost a certainty. Any successful legal challenge to a specific
Section of the Ordinance does not affect the remaining Sections.
In other words
it would require a legal action challenging the entire Ordinance to cause a
full repeal if you vote to make this Ordinance a law; something that would be
lengthy, costly and unlikely to happen.
Section 10. Inclusion in the Pinellas County
Code. The provisions of this Ordinance shall be included and incorporated
in the Pinellas County Code, as an addition or amendment thereto, and
shall be appropriately renumbered to conform to the uniform numbering
system of the Pinellas County Code.
This Section
requires that should the Ordinance be approved by voters it will become part of
the Pinellas County Code. That means it has the full force of law, and requires
significant and often complicated legal action to change or modify it once
approved by the Voters.
This Ordinance
has been crafted by PSTA to be a broad as possible, with few controls, no
reporting requirements and undefined interlocal agreements.
While it
appears that the County may be in control, actually do to the overlapping of County
Board of Commissioners and the PSTA Board and the number of elected officials
whose jurisdictions could or will benefit from the way the sales tax monies are
spent and the lack of defined controls; the PSTA will actually be in control.
PSTA will
control the money so PSTA Board members who are elected officials could be put
in a position of following PSTA suggestions if they want their jurisdictions to
be part of the plan.
Section 11. Filing of Ordinance; Effective
Date. In addition to the notices to the Department of Revenue as provided
herein, pursuant to Section 125.66, Florida Statutes, a certified copy of
this Ordinance shall be filed with the Department of State by the Clerk
within ten ( 10) days after the enactment by the Board. This Ordinance
shall become effective upon filing of the Ordinance with the Department of
State.
This Section requires
filing of the Ordinance within ten days of enactment by the board, although
there is no clear indication of what provisions must be in place for the Board
to approve.
EPILOG
This Post concludes my
Section by Section analysis of the proposed sales tax ordinance. As I have
previously stated this is the most poorly crafted Ordinance I have ever read,
unless you happen to be the PSTA in which case I must admit it is close to
brilliant.
The PSTA is a taxing
authority whose governing board is NOT elected directly for the service to
PSTA, that wants you to agree to tax yourself for nearly 100 years for a train
that is more about redevelopment than it is about public transportation.
It's a bad plan...It's a
bad deal....It's a bad law.
The only sensible vote
on November 4, 2014 is NO
e-mail Doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net, or send me a Facebook (Gene Webb)Friend
request. See More of Doc at Bay Post Internet and
St.Pete
Patch, Gulfport
Patch, Clearwater
Patch, Palm
Harbor Patch, Largo
Patch.
Disclosures: Contributor to No Tax for Tracks
Disclosures: Contributor to No Tax for Tracks
No comments:
Post a Comment