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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Is Karen Diebel Really A Big Taxer?

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  August 6th, 2010 at 03:53 PM  | 

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I haven’t really jumped into FL-24 race other than to raise some concerns I had with Karen Diebel that everyone assures me are actually not big issues.

But one thing that has jumped out at me is some of the attacks on Diebel about her voting for tax increases on the Winter Park City Council in Florida.

Here are some of the tax increases she’s being beaten up about:

* Voted for an increased fee schedule in 2007 that included a $15 fee to process a business certificate, a 2% increase in garbage service, 12% increase in storm water rates, and a 3.09% increase in water and sewer rates.
- Winter Park Commission Minutes, 9/24/2007

* Voted to allow an increase in taxicab fares.
- Winter Park Commission Minutes, 2/25/2008

* Voted for increased fee schedule in 2008.
- Winter Park Commission Minutes, 3/24/2008

* Voted for a fee schedule in 2008 that increased utility meter and recreation fees.
- Winter Park Commission Minutes, 3/24/2008

* Voted to allow a taxicab trip surcharge and an emergency fuel surcharge.
- Winter Park Commission Minutes, 8/25/2008

These aren’t the only ones, but the majority in a long list. Were I to run for Congress, I’d be beaten up for these same votes. Why?

Well, the federal government has increased compliance and enforcement costs to cities relating to garbage disposal and storm water. I recognize those votes from Ms. Diebel because those were some of the very first votes I had to act on in our City Council here in Macon, Georgia.

The federal government insists, for example, that storm water now be treated in certain ways and handled in ways that are ridiculously expensive. Who should pay? The choice is either those who use the service or everyone. It sounds like Ms. Diebel went with charging those who use the service instead of everyone.

She voted for increased taxi fares. Taxis are ridiculously regulated by the state. Fares are controlled by government. If you remember gas prices, if the taxi cab drivers could not raise their rates, they would all go out of business. Really — attacking Ms. Diebel for this amounts to being in favor of shutting down an entire industry because without a fee increase, the taxi companies would have shut down, unable to buy gas and make a living.

Then there are the recreation fee and license surcharges. I don’t know about Winter Park, but here in Macon, our fee schedule was so out of date, we couldn’t keep up. Most states (and I bet Florida has one) actually have a law that these fees cannot be used for revenue streams, but only for compliance costs.

In Macon, we found that fees had not been raised in so long the office in charge of this stuff was losing money instead of breaking even. Surely the people attacking Karen Diebel aren’t in favor fiscal recklessness. If the business licenses office — and whether you like it or not, the municipality has to have one because of state laws — is losing money, it must then be subsidized by the general fund, which comes out of taxpayers’ pockets instead of user generated money.

This post is not intended to be pro-Karen or anti-anyone else. I don’t know enough about the race to make a choice. But I saw this list and realized the people attacking Karen Diebel for these votes are either ignorant or deeply opposed to fiscally responsible government operations and the taxi cab industry.

Sometimes, at the local level, taxes and fees must go up because of federal and state mandates. It looks like Diebel always sided with increasing the cost to those who use a service and not punishing all the taxpayers.

What you won’t find in these attacks, and what I think is commendable, is the frequency with which Karen Diebel has been the lone or almost the only “no” vote on a host of popular measures on her city council. As the person who routinely votes against funding outside entities on our city council, I appreciate her willingness to do what’s right and be unpopular.

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COMMENTS

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  • Aaron Gardner

    None the less how one would act in a conservative fashion in each distinct level.

  • cmw

    These examples are specifically not tax increases, but fees for usage. A tax increaser would opt to raise some rate on everyone to pay for the needs of the few. Asking people who use services to pay for those services is actually a very conservative position.

  • jmimac351

    Diebel also supports SunRail which is a billion dollar boondoggle train between Orlando and Tampa that no one is going to ride. It creates perpetual operating costs that there is no money to pay. Oh, except for my money. That’s a much bigger fiscal issue than these fees. She and other RINOs supported it because there was Federal taxpayer money to be bad from the so-called Stimulus. I understand you know little about the issues here but your “defense” misses the point entirely. Conservatives around here hate that train and RINOs like her, and Daniel Webster I might add running against Grayson in FL-8, had to scratch and claw to get it approved. It is the most glaring example of how she views the role of public funding. If we needed a friggin’ train to run along I-4 between Tampa and Orlando the private sector would have built it already!!

    Erick, you also know as well as anyone that fees are often used in place of tax increases, whether there is a real increase in the cost of the associated activity or not. In fact, that is exactly what the Florida legislature did last year to try and help close the state’s budget gap. Oh, they didn’t raise taxes, just fees we all have to pay.

    I live in FL-24 and I am voting for Craig Miller.

    www.craigmillerforcongress.com

    I am also voting for Rick Scott in the primary for Governor.

    If I lived in Grayson’s district I’d vote for Todd Long.

  • jmimac351

    –> SunRail was voted down in a statewide Voter referendum 3 times.

    –> SunRail was voted down in the state legislature TWICE.

    Yet, they still managed to ram it thru. Diebel supports it and lobbied for a station to be in Winter Park. What does that say about what she thinks of what constituents want?

    We need the right candidate in FL-24. She ain’t it.

  • Oz

    Erick isn’t saying she’s Ronald Reagan.

    He’s just pointing out that the people are using a straw man to attack her in this regards.

  • montanaag

    I think what Diebel voted for was not the Orlando-Tampa rail project but rather the Deland-Kissimmee/Poinciana rail project that’s already underway. It also goes by the name SunRail but was NOT the same statewide project rejected by voters. I agree that the Tampa-Orlando project seems destined to fail…unless we can figure out a way to tax tourists to pay for it, but the Deland-Kissimmee rail project does have some merit.

    Now, having said that I tire of the incessant references to “connections” people have at NRCC and other places. It would seem that if anyone at the NRCC is even marginally competent Diebel might not be in the race in the first place. Others have mentioned her run-in’s with the police and the possibility of there being a Baker Act out there somewhere.. Don’t think for a minute the Kosmas Kool-Aid Brigade won’t hang that around her head, allowing the Orlando media and Nanny Maxwell at the Sentinel to bludgeon her, and by default the Republicans.

    If Diebel stay’s in the race and defeats Miller in the primary you can bet that FL-24 will remain in Kosmas’ hand come November, giving her the power of incumbency for yet another two years.

  • http://www.sunshinestatesarah.com sunshinestatesarah

    If someone is Baker-Acted, it’s a public record. That’s so unscrupulous people can’t lock up grandma in a facility somewhere away from the rest of the family. I’ve seen that sort of thing attempted in will contest cases (i.e., in an effort to isolate from the rest of the family, get the person to change their will, etc.)

    If Karen Diebel had really been Baker Acted, there would be a public record. Absentee ballots have been out for 2 weeks and early voting starts tomorrow. You better believe that if the record actually existed, someone in Adams or Miller’s campaign would have already leaked it to the internet.

    I am amazed how a small circle of anonymous internet posters and operatives from the campaigns of Diebel’s opponents keep repeating the same pernicious lie and citing to each other as sources, and then somehow claim credibility from that. Complete nonsense.

  • http://www.sunshinestatesarah.com sunshinestatesarah

    …and regarding SunRail, this train project that has everyone losing their darn minds…

    …contrary to the way it was handled in other municipalities along the proposed route, Winter Park put the issue up for a vote. The citizens of Winter Park were asked if they wanted SunRail. They voted YES.

    The next thing the WP City Commission did is make a detailed plan to set aside funds in a plan to save the money in time for when it would be needed to pay for WP’s part of the route. That was something Karen Diebel fought very hard to accomplish – creating a reserve fund to save for the train, instead of having to raise taxes or borrow money later.

    Oh, and by the way, ALL of the SunRail plans ALWAYS included a Winter Park stop. There have been several proposals and debates about the exact location, but the suggestion at the very beginning of the concept was the current train station and that has been the only location seriously considered by most people.

    Karen cast her vote on the WP City Commission to approve SunRail only AFTER her citizens had voted on it and approved it, and made sure that the city made a responsible plan for paying for it.

  • jmimac351

    See here:

    http://wpmobserver.com/wpmobserver/article.asp?ID=1711

    And here Diebel attacks someone critical of Sun Rail’s blotted costs:

    http://wpmobserver.com/wpmobserver/article.asp?ID=1530

    And again here:

    http://seminolevoice.com/seminole_voice/article.asp?ID=2716

    Also, it appears Winter Park is trying to find a way out of this bad idea:

    http://wdbo.com/localnews/2010/05/could-winter-park-back-out-of.html

  • jmimac351

    See the links I posted above. This is simply not the case.

    The “responsible plan” depends on taxpayer money to subsidize this thing because the rail will never, EVER, produce enough revenue to pay it’s own costs. Post office, public buses, SunRail, et al… courtesy of the taxpayer whether you use it or not.

  • http://www.scragged.com petrarch

    I know nothing about SunRail in particular, but think through the principle here.

    If it’s true that, as sunshinestatesarah says, the voters of Winter Park approved the rail line in a referendum, are you suggesting that the conservative action would be to tell them, “Sorry, no, we’re going to just ignore you and do what we think is best”? I think not.

    Given that the voters had directly approved the rail line, creating a fund to pay for it in advance seems like a very conservative and appropriate action. If you HAVE to do it, you ought to pay for it up front – which is what Karen Diebel did, it sounds like. Kudos to her for fiscal honesty.