Local & State Headlines

Candidate questions Lee taxes

• A retired manager with Miller Brewing challenges the spending habits of Lee County government.

Susan McCord

LEESBURG — In the 21 years since Joe Adair moved to Lee County, he’s seen a couple of changes in county services — curbside trash pickup and the construction of two fire stations near his Century District home.

“We used to haul our garbage up the road,” paying a portion of his annual property tax bill — which was then less than $500 — to use a county dump site.

Lee added curbside trash pickup, but never reduced taxes — and would add additional fees for existing services as the years went by.

“What the county provides (now) is a fire station on U.S. 19 and one over here in Redbone (District) that are supposed to give me fire services,” said the 66-year-old father of four and grandfather of five. “That’s the only thing that I receive, but my property taxes have gone up over 400 percent.”

Now retired after 25 years with Miller Brewing, Adair said he has plenty of time to tackle Lee County’s toughest issues as the new commissioner for Century District. He faces accountant Rick Muggridge and incumbent businessman Morris Leverett in the July 15 Republican primary. No Democratic candidates have entered the race.

As a retiree, Adair said he’s learned to live on a fixed income — and so should Lee County government, despite the tremendous residential growth it has seen during the last 15 years.

“Growth, whether it be residential or commercial, usually means an increase in the tax base, which should lower property taxes, but our taxes are still increasing,” Adair said.

“It seems like just a certain few people benefit from Lee County’s growth — the builders, the ones who put in the sewer pipes. The burden keeps going back on the taxpayer, and nobody’s benefiting except for a certain few.

“You can just tax people so much. Not me, I’m on a fixed income. I’m not going to be getting more money.”

From a district he said is chock-full of retirees, Adair said he’d like to see property assessments frozen for people over 65 and senior citizens exempted from school taxes.

If elected, Adair said he’d also crack down on the growth of county government. The county’s proposed fiscal year 2009 budget of approximately $21.9 million reflects growth of 18 percent from Lee’s 2008 budget of $18.1 million. The Board of Commissioners has scheduled a work session on the 2009 budget Monday.

“We don’t have the leadership in the county to go to these department heads and say that we’ve got to hold our budgets down,” Adair said. “If we’ve got a surplus, we’ve got to put it toward our debt.

“Every time it looks like our tax base is going to have a surplus, all our departments come in and jack up their budgets. Just because you have a little money, that doesn’t mean you have to spend it.”

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