By D. L. Norris In the March 2020 archives of this blog, there is an article titled Okaloosa County’s Crab Island Vending…Liberal Attitudes and Conservative Magnitude which discusses the history of how illegal vending at Crab Island, a National Park, began and proliferated for decades. If you aren’t familiar with the history, you may want …
Continue reading “Okaloosa County’s Crab Island Vending and the Rule of Law”
By D. L. Norris From taxhistory.org, there are “four ways governments extract money from persons: 1.) taxes, including special assessments and franchise and privilege license taxes 2.) user fees 3.) civil regulatory penalties 4.) criminal penalties” Both taxes and fees were created by the government to raise revenue so why the need to separate the …
Continue reading “Okaloosa County, a Tax by Any Other Name (User Fee) is Still a Tax”
By D. L. Norris Among the many duties Florida law lays out for the commissioners in non-charter counties to perform; adopting county ordinances, resolutions, rules of procedure and prescribing fines and penalties for violations of ordinances are near the top of the list right after adopting an annual budget and levying taxes and special assessments. …
Continue reading “Okaloosa County’s 2019 Legislative Year in Review”
By D. L. Norris Happy New Year Okaloosa County! With the new year 2020, comes an election and Districts 1, 3, and 5 county commissioner seats are up for re-election. The incumbent commissioner in District 3 is running for re-election, Nathan Boyles. The incumbent commissioners for Districts 1 and 5, Graham Fountain and Kelley Windes, …
