Proponents of Amendment 3 tout it as a relief measure that will save homeowners thousands in property taxes. But it’s really a ploy to benefit well-to-do residents at the expense of the less fortunate, Black leaders in South Florida say.
Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones put it in plainer terms.
“Lipstick on a pig is what we’re looking at,” he said. “This is not a tax relief. This is a tax shift — you might not pay it on this, but you’re going to pay it on that.”
Jones was among more than a dozen notable members of South Florida’s Black community to convene for a news conference outside of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Miami Gardens, Florida’s largest Black-majority municipality.
The through line of the event: Voters shouldn’t fall for the bait-and-switch Republicans are offering, as it will devastate local budgets and, by extension, the myriad services they provide to Floridians.
“If you have a medical emergency, it’s firefighters that respond. If you have a law enforcement emergency, it’s the police department that actually gets there quickly. It’s your parks. It’s your roads. It’s that extra meal for senior citizens that might only have one meal a day. It’s all of those things,” said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, who is almost assuredly bound for Congress after defeating Jones and five Primary opponents last month.
Gilbert noted that riders on Miami-Dade’s Metrobus today pay only about 11% of the actual cost of their fare, with the rest being covered by the county general fund. That rate will rise steeply if Amendment 3 passes, he said, while popular programs like the county’s no-kill policy at animal shelters would be placed on the proverbial cutting board.
And it’s not even what residents want, he added.
Read the full news article on Florida Politics