The tax base in Deerfield Beach is being cut in half. A townhouse in the Waterford Courtyards just sold for $80,000.00.That is about what they sold for new 23 years ago. Last year’s taxes on this property were $4,017.15. Next year’s taxes will be a fraction of that. The city and county took every bit of the increase when property values were soaring. Now, they need to give back every bit of the decline as our property values collapse. An increase in the millage will not be acceptable to most residents in Deerfield Beach.
I am asking the Commission and City Manager to cut the budget and give the taxpayers a break. They are not serious about cutting costs. For example, to help pay an outrageous charge of $900,000 to move the generator building on SW 10 Street before construction started, they eliminated brick pavers. Excuse me, why was the city putting expensive brick pavers around a utility building that only city employees will visit?
Every year, they waste money on the Water Quality Report by mailing a slick publication with separate postage instead of putting it on a couple of sheets of standard paper and mailing it with the water bills as some cities do.
The only way to cut wasteful spending in Deerfield Beach is to cut every department’s budget by 20 percent and force them to do what families and business owners are forced to do — look at where they can cut unnecessary spending.
Robert Lloyd
Deerfield Beach
Reader watches TV special on healthcare
Dear Editor:
After watching 20/20 last night I wanted to vomit. Then, I realized that I would not be able to receive care for vomiting if Obama’s healthcare plan comes to fruition. What the President is attempting to initiate is appalling. The segment on 20/20 showed the long lines of people attempting to just register to see and be seen by a doctor in Canada and Great Britain. In addition, they also showed how world leaders from other countries come to the United States to receive treatment that is unavailable to them because of their medical system — the very system that bit by bit Obama is attempting to bring to the U.S. This begs the question, what will this mean to the medical system in the U.S? How will my pump- dependent diabetic husband get his supplies? In the system that Obama wants, it would often take time for his supplies to be approved to be shipped to him. He would literally die in line before being seen by his doctor. On 20/20 it showed how MRIs and scans are available on a daily basis in Canada if you are an animal. But for a person, it can take a week to get an appointment. They also showed how a child couldn’t get in a hospital for her seizures because there weren’t enough rooms. Gee, I wonder how they would handle professional athletes who got hurt during a game? Do you think they would have to wait? Do we really want to become a society that allows people to remain ill, grow increasingly ill or die because we do not have enough room in a hospital or our name has not come up in a medical lottery system? I felt like cattle being blindly taken to the slaughter after watching 20/20. I cannot help but wonder how President Obama would feel having to tell one of his daughters she had to wait for her insulin because of the new medical system he implemented.
