Volusia County is in trouble. We have an epidemic of depressed values, failing schools and rising unemployment.

Don't expect Tallahassee to save us. Their past solutions of public-private partnerships and other forms of financial giveaways don't work.

We need to fund quality of life improvements and lower taxes, benefiting those who live here now. This will keep the jobs we have and entice new ones to freely come. The problem is how will we pay for this? We can start by eliminating the Community Redevelopment Areas.

What is a CRA? CRAs are a tactic to create a pool of tax dollars for private development incentives in areas that are labeled "blighted." This pool gets bigger when property values increase, when tax rates increase, or a double whammy, when both happen. In good times or bad, the CRAs will always get their money because it is hidden within legitimate tax collections across most of the items in your tax bill.

The most well-known failure is the documented fraud and corruption in Daytona Beach CRAs, which are Volusia's largest. The best reason, however, is a fundamental flaw in CRA logic. There is unfairness to every Volusia County taxpayer who lives outside of the CRA because they get stuck with the bill yet receive no benefit. All taxpayers have to show for CRAs are past-due promises of "if we just help them build this one more project, prosperity will follow."

Does Daytona Beach look more prosperous to you after 20 years of CRAs? Even in law-abiding CRAs, most dollars are spent on giveaways instead of more meaningful and permanent infrastructure upgrades for the small area that was allegedly "blighted."

How do our elected leaders justify saddling every property taxpayer with extra taxes that mostly benefits a few well connected individuals? Tax base growth.

Unfortunately, the revenues from this tax base growth, by law, can only be reinvested back into the CRA giveaway pool, never benefiting the taxpayers at large.

Today our taxes are higher than necessary due to the current CRA set asides, and it will get worse. The CRA tax base growth will never go toward paying for their own services until the CRAs are eliminated. As a result, all taxpayers will suffer another round of tax increases to pay for the additional services for the more intensely developed CRA areas.

Volusia County taxpayers have yet to feel this second and larger tax increase since little has been built in our CRAs besides a water park, one functioning Daytona Beach project and a half-finished, near-empty condo complex in Holly Hill.

Some will say we cannot eliminate CRAs because they are bonded. This only means we would have to divert all incoming CRA funds to paying off the bonds before elimination. The fact is most CRAs have no bonds and could be shut down immediately with a vote by our elected leaders.

Let's get this area back on track and lead an economic resurrection in Florida by eliminating our CRAs. It would lower everyone's tax bill without increasing the sales tax, reducing anyone's core services or jeopardizing school funding.

Honest solutions like this will never come from Tallahassee, but the opportunity is real, and we can do it!

Greg Gimbert

Daytona Beach

representative of political action committee Striving Towards a New Daytona