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"Whoop Bingo! Right in the canal!"
• Margate charging $1,000 to fish your car out
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Thursday,
January 22, 2009
“Whoop Bingo, right in the canal!” is what my wife’s grandmother used to say 20 years ago when reading stories in the newspaper about cars floundering into city canals. Recently, Margate city officials decided to start charging car owners a $1,000 to retrieve their car from the canal, whether it got there by accident or on purpose.
Although only an average of 3 to 5 cars end up Margate canals yearly, the city of Margate is aggressively cutting costs everywhere it can and, according to Margate City Manager, Frank Porcella, this is just one of those ways.
“Double dipping,” said one resident, who asked commissioners at a recent city meeting why Margate residents should be charged, since their taxes already cover the cost of removing cars from canals in Margate. Another resident asked, “What if my car was stolen and it wasn’t my fault that it ended up in the canal?”
Margate is the first city in Broward County to levy this type of charge to residents.
What spooked residents when Commissioners discussed the item Wednesday night was how no one seemed to know -- or come forward with -- the precise or approximate cost of pulling a car from a canal in Margate, which one resident said would have helped commissioners and the public better understand the need for the charge.
"It would seem like basic common sense accounting [GAAP -- Generally Accepted Accounting Principles] to first figure out how much it cost to extract a car from a canal, so as to determine whether current taxes cover it or more need to be levied," said one source.
On the dais, Donovan, Bross, Talerico and McClean voted affirmatively to pass the resolution on its second reading. Varsallone was in dissension.
What do you think? Email me. All constructive contributions will be posted in the Opinion column.
Copyright 2009 Cassius Group Inc.
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