Brevard; they are looking at a price increase in the campgrounds; he can justify some of the
increases because the County residents are probably paying taxes, and they do not; and he
reiterated he looked at the taxes and how they are calculated. He went on to say he looked at
the website taxrate.org from Brevard County; the tax rate here is .87 of one percent of the fair
market value of a home; the fair market value is $186,900; that translates into $1,618 property
taxes a year for the resident of Brevard; by looking at that monthly, it is $135 a month; and if
that is translating into what is being paid, the residents are paying $807 to camp, and they are
paying $1,186, so they are paying $379 premium, much more than the people locally are
paying. He noted if a person is looking at equity, they are out of equity; that is discrimination
against them being on the outside by the amount of $379; in addition to paying more taxes than
they are, in terms of their rent, they are also looking at a difference of how much time they have
to rent the property; they have 12 months to the day to book a site, residents have 13 months,
so they are discriminated against with rent and amount of time they can book the site; and
economically, if the snow birds are not coming in, the State of Florida has $40 billion of revenue
coming into the State per year from tourism, from people outside. He stated he does not have
the breakdown of how Brevard County shares in that but nevertheless there is going to be a
significant amount of breakdown.
Commissioner Tobia asked if Mr. Miller is from Michigan.
Mr. Miller replied affirmatively.
Commissioner Tobia advised it is a wonderful state, great education system; University of
Michigan, just to put this in perspective, they did not raise rent for residents higher than
Consumer Price Index (CPI), so Mr. Miller is concerned about out-of-state; he wants to pick
Michigan because he hears people complaining over and over again; assuming the University
of Michigan determined he would be a decent applicant, if he was in the State of Michigan, the
tuition this year is $16,178; if he was, as he is, a Florida resident, that same tuition is $53,232;
and he understands where he is coming from, but Michigan does the exact same thing as
Florida. He went on to say he appreciates everyone’s concern up here, but this is how Florida
structures taxes; they give benefits to in-state and charge just costs out-of-state; Michigan does
it to Florida residents, and he is just now feeling it this way; he appreciates Mr. Millers’ time, but
it is disingenuous to come up and say Brevard County is the only one who does it when in fact
it is his state that charges three times more; someone who goes to Michigan would end up
paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 more in tuition and get that same degree
four years later; and he wants to put things into perspective, not only for the Board, but
certainly all of the residents of Brevard County that are listening. He added their rates did not
go up more than three percent.
Mr. Miller asked if he can offer a rebuttal.
Chair Pritchett replied no, to move on; and she noted she is not going to let the Board talk
anymore until it is completely done with public comment.
J. Barry Monaghan stated his concern is staying at Wickham Park with what is referred to as
the Wickham shuffle; he has seen people come in and spend one day in a spot, have to move
over to the next site in one day; a person is constantly moving; sometimes he or she stays for a
while, sometimes it is a day; and he suggested the Board consider making part of the park for
short-term visitors, so that when there is an opening of say a month, and somebody comes in
and wants to take one or two days in the middle, it means that people have to move every other
day.
Dominic Ciarlello stated he has been coming to Wickham Park for 24 years; he started out
when it did not have anything, they were promised a lot of stuff, and they did not get a lot of