$450 million contract<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn April, days before a lawsuit was due to go to trial, the city and Waste Pro agreed to a settlement. As a condition of the settlement, neither side admitted fault or wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
“From the beginning, I have maintained that the funds should primarily benefit the residents who had experienced trash service issues in 2021 and 2022,” Martin said.<\/p>\n
“At the same time, it is very important to acknowledge the residents who moved here afterward,” she said. “These households have also contributed.”<\/p>\n
The 57,242 residents who have owned the same home here since 2022 will see the $364 credit on their city tax bill this year. The 13,421 homeowners who moved here since 2022 \u2014 the year after Waste Pro was ousted \u2014 will receive a $64 credit.<\/p>\n
Residents who moved from one house to another in the city since 2022 are eligible to receive the full $364 through a claims process.<\/p>\n
The City Council was unanimous in its desire to award the $24 million settlement amount back to residents. Vice Mayor Jolien Caraballo, however, wanted reimbursements to be mailed as checks, instead of applied as tax credits.<\/p>\n
Caraballo argued mailing a check, although more expensive, would be preferred because it would be quicker.<\/p>\n
“We need to make it right, right now,” Caraballo said.<\/p>\n
Mailing checks to 81,918 property owners, however, would cost about $200,000, city officials estimated.<\/p>\n
The City Council voted 4-1, with Caraballo dissenting, to move forward with reimbursements through tax credits.<\/p>\n
The council, however, was heckled by several of the roughly 40 residents in attendance, who said they would have preferred receiving paper checks instead.<\/p>\n
Jack Randall is TCPalm’s economy and real estate reporter. You can reach him at jack.randall@tcpalm.com.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Port St. Lucie residents awarded up to $364 tax credit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was updated to correct an inaccuracy. PORT ST. LUCIE \u2014 Property owners here will be receiving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,114653,83642,30091,66350,31889,102080,8390],"class_list":["post-309740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-property-owners","tag-settlement","tag-shannon-martin","tag-tax-credit","tag-the-city-council","tag-trash-hauler","tag-waste-pro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}