City used Tuesday's meeting to campaign against the homestead tax cut

St. Augustine Beach commissioners spent Tuesday, September 8, rewriting a city FAQ on the November homestead tax cut. Staff called it answering questions. What they had on the table was city copy aimed at a tax break residents would vote on.

Vice Mayor Virginia Morgan walked the draft line by line. She said she wanted it as neutral as possible. The version they left still has the city saying it has not raised property taxes in three years — the same night the commission voted a tax increase. A scare line about charging for parking if the cut passes came out. A wrong $25,000 exemption figure became the real $50,000. Resident Nick Binder told them the extra break does not touch school taxes, and that some online savings calculators are wrong.

They took consensus to publish the FAQ with those changes. Morgan then asked the manager to book a League of Cities talk next month, before the election, because a lot of people have questions. Reading the FAQ, she said, is not enough.

City time, city copy, a city-booked speaker — all aimed at a tax cut on the ballot. They did not take a vote to oppose the amendment.