Dear Deltona Bona Fide,
Your
Halloween cartoon
is very funny, but frighteningly true. My wife and I were both
really worried about the
Deltona
Police Department issue. We knew that it would have meant
a significant increase in our property taxes.
As it is, even though our house and property has
lost tens of thousands of dollars in market value, our property
taxes have increased this year again. Every year since we
moved here in 2004 our property taxes have increased. Already,
our property taxes are over 11% of our taxable income. It
seems that the City of Deltona and Volusia County are taxing us out
of our house.
If the referendum on the Deltona Police
Department had passed, and property taxes increased exponentially to
pay for Mayor Mulder's ill-conceived idea, it might have meant that
we would have been forced to move out of Deltona. With the
housing market being so bad, we would end up taking a serious loss
on the sale of our home, even if it sold, which would be unlikely
with the thousands upon thousands of homes already up for sale in
Deltona.
I am retired. Being taxed out of my house
by ever-increasing taxes would cause us to lose the only financial
security that we have. Mayor Mulder is suffering from more than just
shortsightedness; he is suffering from a lack of clear vision of who
he is as mayor and whom he is supposed to be representing.
Perhaps Mayor Mulder has more money than he knows
what to do with, but Deltona is not a city made up of wealthy
people. Deltona is a city of working class families and
retirees, most of who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. We
cannot afford irresponsible, self-serving city and county officials.
We love Deltona. We love Volusia County.
We love Florida. We just want responsible, honest,
hard-working government officials, who are looking out for our best
interests and not their own, who are trying to spend taxpayer
dollars wisely and not trying to line their own pockets with our
cash, and who are making well thought-out, wise decisions!
Kindest Regards,
Lawrence Cassidy
