BELLEAIR BLUFFS \u2014 The dog days of summer fueled by budget planning sessions and public hearings have dissolved into quiet end-of-the-year meetings where local governments wrap up loose ends.<\/p>\n
In Belleair and Belleair Bluffs, the commission agendas for November were mainly filled with housekeeping items and calendar recaps with the busy holiday special events season right around the corner.<\/p>\n
But one hot-button topic traversed the two miles between the town halls.<\/p>\n
Officials of both municipalities addressed the state Legislature\u2019s proposal to allow residents to vote next year to eliminate property taxes \u2014 and with it, the ad valorem tax revenue most cities use as a primary source to fund education, public safety and emergency services, road maintenance and capital improvement projects and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking about it, and I said the only way that you win these things is with little, concise soundbites,\u201d Mayor Chris Arbutine said during the Nov. 17 Belleair Bluffs City Commission meeting, referring to the war of words with state politicians touting the economic benefits of eliminating property taxes.<\/p>\n
Arbutine said he created two sentences that succinctly explain the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cA vote for no ad valorem tax is a vote to defund our city,\u201d he said he tells residents. \u201cAnd a vote to defund our city makes us a ward of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arbutine, now in his 25th year and believed to be the longest tenured mayor in Florida, said local government \u201cis the only place where your money actually gets used for things like fire trucks and police cars and ambulances and signs and roads and lights and all the things you see.\u201d He added that eliminating ad valorem taxes would cause a chain reaction many small communities would struggle to recover from.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are going to say, \u2018You don\u2019t have to pay ad valorem taxes to these terrible local politicians,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then they\u2019re going to say, \u2018Oh my goodness, we just didn\u2019t think it was going to create this big of a problem. Now we\u2019ve got to create a new tax. But don\u2019t worry, we\u2019re going to handle all your taxes at the state level, and we\u2019re going to control the purse strings.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Arbutine argued the move is being pushed \u201cby state guys\u201d living in a bubble.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they\u2019re in a bubble, and they don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on around here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that disconnect would have severe repercussions for Pinellas County residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat vote (to eliminate property taxes) will make you become a ward of the state, and that means we\u2019ll be totally dependent on state government. Totally dependent,\u201d Arbutine said. \u201cAnd if you don\u2019t trust your city government, which is your neighbors … can you imagine trying to get a hold of state politicians, especially when there\u2019s all kinds of money involved?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone wants the state to tell us what\u2019s good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arbutine, who has not hesitated to share his views this year on subjects ranging from the Florida DOGE investigations in Pinellas County to legalized sports gambling, then made a bombshell claim about what he was told would happen if he speaks against the property tax measure once it’s on the 2026 ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have told local politicians that we will get arrested if we lobby against it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I come up here after they do that and I say exactly what I just said just now, on the dais, they can come arrest me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When someone in the room said, \u201cthat\u2019s freedom of speech,\u201d Arbutine replied, \u201cApparently not. They\u2019re going to muzzle us. They want to muzzle us. So, I\u2019m just saying there\u2019s a lot of weird things going on here, and these little soundbites I\u2019m creating I\u2019m creating because it\u2019s too complicated a question.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Belleair the next night, officials addressed the property tax elimination proposal in a different manner.<\/p>\n
Town Manager Gay Lancaster said they want residents to understand the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put in front of you the first piece of information we\u2019re going to be putting on our website,\u201d Lancaster said Nov. 18. \u201cThere are many items up for discussion by the Legislature regarding property taxes, and we feel like it\u2019s important to help people understand what their property taxes are paying for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lancaster said the information breaks down of where property tax dollars go, with roughly one-third each to Pinellas County Schools, Pinellas County government and the municipality.<\/p>\n
She noted the majority of Belleair\u2019s revenue comes from ad valorem taxes, as the small bedroom community has very little commercial property to generate tax dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do want to say, as our first piece notes, that 60% of our budget is supported by ad valorem (taxes),\u201d Lancaster said. She added that the town plans to host public information meetings, \u201cso people can come and ask questions, and we can respond regarding what might be proposed as far as the Legislature and the potential to eliminate some or all ad valorem taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, down the road in the Bluffs, Arbutine is preparing for a potential standoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen with the ad valorem. But it\u2019s going to be a tough road to hoe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be tough, but we have to do the best we can. And I\u2019ll probably get arrested. Because I just can\u2019t keep my mouth shut!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BELLEAIR BLUFFS \u2014 The dog days of summer fueled by budget planning sessions and public hearings have dissolved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[17283,29246,596,8191,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-62237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-belleair","tag-belleair-bluffs","tag-pinellas-county","tag-property-tax","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62237","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=62237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}