Tampa strives to improve moron quotient

TAMPA - Residents of Florida said they wanted lower property taxes, and the state Legislature will allow voters to make that decision in January. Monday, residents of Hillsborough County learned just what that vote could cost them.

Fire-rescue services and libraries are among the hardest-hit parts of Hillsborough County's budget for next year, according to figures released by County Administrator Pat Bean on Monday. . ..

The largest single financial cut -- over $17-million next year alone -- is to Library Services, where the construction of seven libraries would be cancelled. Foxnews.

Hold tight wait till the party's over

Hold tight We're in for nasty weather

There has got to be a way

Burning down the house

Homes for Mary Jane in Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee Counties

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports on grow houses:

As housing prices fall along Florida's Gulf Coast, suburbs like Lehigh Acres, North Port and Port Charlotte have become a haven for "grow houses" where high-grade marijuana is cultivated and harvested.

While the Herald-Tribune prefers to attribute much of this booming new "grass roots industry" to lower echelon bedroom communities like Port Charlotte, Sarasota County's own code enforcement officers say they're finding the Mary Jane Subdivisions among some of the high end housing in Venice and Sarasota.

Amazing how often the SH_T has to go outside of its prime circulation area to cover stories that can be found on its own doorstep.

The new Real Estate Boom appears to be a hit in Port St. Lucie as well, according to the DEA.

Explosion in Orlando

"Orlando has blown up. There's been a 700 percent increase in traffic of people filling out our forms," he said. "I could put a bull's-eye on Orlando and write the headline for what will be going on in January and February."

Average price drop: 27 percent

Via the Housing Bubble blog:

Feature story

Reprinted by permission
Nearly 450 Vulture Properties Sold In First Half of 2007
By Peter Zalweski
South Florida real estate sellers appear to be finally cutting their prices low enough for some discount buyers to begin to purchase properties, according to a July report from Condo Vultures™ LLC. Nearly 450 properties in the company's Vultures™ Database have been sold at an average discount of 27 percent, or $276,679, in the first half of the year.

Condo Vultures™ - Market Intelligence Report
Nearly 450 Vulture Properties Sold In First Half of 2007
South Florida real estate sellers appear to be finally cutting their prices low enough for some discount buyers to begin to purchase properties, according to a July report from Condo Vultures™ LLC. Nearly 450 properties in the Vultures™ Database have been sold at an average discount of 27 percent, or $276,679, in the first half of the year, according to the July 18 report.

Few South Florida cities are immune from the discount selling. Condo Vultures™ has tracked desperation sales in some of the tri-county region's most desirable areas, including Miami Beach, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, and Fort Lauderdale.

Closed sales aside, the Vultures™ Database is still monitoring 1,700 properties that have been slashed in price by an average of 24 percent, or $310,184. The typical property – condos, single-family homes, townhouses, lots, and docks east of Interstate 95 – in the database has been on the market for an average of 426 days, according to the report.

Condo Vultures™ LLC is a Bal Harbour-based consulting and analytical firm that monitors the South Florida real estate market. Sister company Condo Vultures™ Realty LLC is a licensed Florida real estate brokerage. Residential properties are added to the Vultures™ Database once their asking price has been reduced by $100,000 and/or 10 percent, or the property has lingered on market for at least 100 days. Condo Vultures™ tracks 29 markets in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

On a city-by-city basis, the most dramatic average price drops being tracked by the Vultures™ Database are in the working class cities of Hialeah (34 percent drop), Dania Beach (31 percent drop), and Oakland Park. (31 percent drop). That doesn’t mean the more affluent areas are insulated from the declining market. Sunny Isles Beach, Hollywood, and Aventura are all experiencing an average price drop of 21 percent. Key Biscayne, Miami Beach, Bay Harbor Islands, and South Miami are not much better off, having dropped by an average of 20 percent.

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Doppelganger Meet-Up in Palm Beach

More Vote Fraud in Palm Beach

Palm Beach County, Fla. -- home of the infamous "hanging chad" of the disputed 2000 presidential election -- is again the scene of election controversy.

The Republican Party of Palm Beach County has uncovered at least 60 cases of voters it believes voted twice -- once in New York and once in Florida -- in the Nov. 7, 2006, general election.

The GOP investigators believe vote fraud is far worse. Their analysis found as many as nearly 12,000 Florida voters who were registered to vote in the state of New York. link

Tampa continues to rack up recognition

Forbes:

Tampa came in last on our list of cities best for young professionals. Behind Detroit. Behind Indianapolis.

No stranger to awards, Tampa is also home to Dale Mabry Hwy.:

Dale Mabry Highway, originally built as a military transportation route between air fields during World War II, has been cited in the Wall Street Journal as a "blue ribbon contender" if "prizes were given for the ugliest urban road in America". link

The Penile State doesn't understand where Forbes gets its data. One look at the list of corporate sponsors for Fetish Con dispels any suggestion that Tampa is not a magnet for the best and brightest...

The only thing on Sarasota Magazine's mind

$%^&#@$*$

Everything he does

"Everything I do I think I do for the right purposes," he said. "I only have to answer to my God." Tom Monaghan, former owner of the Detroit Tigers and Domino's Pizza, and developer of Ave Maria. $




Ave Maria, the much-hyped Catholic university and adjoining town, opened this weekend with a festival to celebrate what marketers call the first major Catholic university to open in 40 years. The project's developers hail it as the first modern simultaneous development of a university and community. #

The ultimate question: Will they choose coke?

"Florida's American Civil Liberties Union just opened a chapter in Collier County."

Hate crime in Sarasota goes unnoticed by Sarasota press for a week

A family that migrated from Bosnia to Sarasota, Florida, returned home to find their house destroyed by fire, vandalized and covered with anti-Muslim graffiti.

This happened on July 6th, but only began to be reported by local media on July 13th.

It took the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the "newspaper of record" for the city and county of Sarasota, on the Gulf Coast of the Penile State, until July 14th to acknowledge the event's existence.

The paper, struggling with its own problems of dwindling readership, advertising and real estate woes, clearly has better things to do than report hate crimes that destroy the homes of families who have lived in the city for three years with no record of any disturbances.

The paper has not done a follow-up story. One wonders what it would have made of this if the home were owned by one of the local celebs that juice its salivary glands, or, say, just by a typical cute white family, instead of by a family named Sejfovic from Bosnia with three kids.

The SH_T finally squeezed out an update.

"None of the elected officials who actually live in this community have said anything."

What, them worry? when the media itself displays utter indifference...

You can fly a fleet of planes thru the loopholes in Florida Corporate Law

Between August and December of 2006 Prestige Airways flew an enormous number of flights (419!),records at the U.S. Dept of Transportation reveal, between Florida and Haiti.

via