Page 27 - Southern Exposure - November '24

Southern Exposure, Page 27

LocaL goverNmeNt from page 26 Court and Comptroller is a free service to help you protect
your property from fraud by monitoring the documents being
operations listed in the Florida Statute 193.173 (2). recorded in the official records of the clerk’s office.
The amount of the exemption is equal to the taxable value Register to receive free email alerts when a document
of the homestead of the service member on January 1 of the such as a deed or mortgage is recorded using your name, your
year the exemption is sought, multiplied by the number of business’s name, or your address. This early notification can
days that the service member was on a qualified deployment save time when stopping scams.
in the preceding calendar year and divided by the number of Sign up at mypalmbeachclerk.com.
days in that year. We will do the math for you.
More information is available at pbcpao.gov. You Holiday Food Drive
can always call us at (561) 355-2866 or email us at
myexemption@pbcpao.gov with questions. This month kicks off the Palm Beach County Property
Appraiser’s Office’s annual Holiday Food Drive. The special
Protect Your Property With food-raising campaign is in its 25th year. Our office’s 2023 donation; from left to right, Chief Appraiser
Last year, 4,609 pounds of food were collected from staff
Fraud Alert and donated to Extended Hands Community Outreach and Cecil Jackson, RES, AAS; staff from Extended Hands; Public
The Glades Initiative.
Services Manager Virginia Leonard, CFE; Public Services
Scammers commit property fraud by filing fake deeds, The Property Appraiser’s Office encourages and supports Department Specialist Clarice Bethel-Laing; Public Services
making it appear as if they own homes that are not actually employee community service throughout Palm Beach Department Customer Service Representative II Robert
theirs. Then, they trick people into giving them money to County. Our employees are dedicated to giving back to the Castillo (kneeling); Public Services Department Customer
rent or buy those homes. community that we serve. Service Representative II Sade Neuforth; Extended Hands
The property fraud alert from the Clerk of the Circuit Community Outreach Executive Director Coeliah Bryson;
Director of Information Technology Richard Hernandez,
CGCIO, AAS, ITIL, CFE

Holiday Office Closures
The Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office
(including all of our Service Centers) will be closed:
Monday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day
Thursday, Nov. 28, Thanksgiving Day
Friday, Nov. 29, Floating Holiday

Town Of Jupiter

News

By Jim Kuretski, Mayor, Town of Jupiter

Jupiter Fire Rescue
Services
Circuit Court Judge
Scott issued an Oct. 9,
order declaring that Palm
Beach County Fire Rescue
(PBCFR) Union, Local
2928, PAC’s proposed
charter amendment and
associated ballot language
is legally “invalid” and
“unconstitutional in its
entirety” and cannot be put to a vote, and cannot be
adopted by the Town of Jupiter.
The court ruling stated: “It is undisputed that the Town
Council’s decision to terminate its agreement with the
county was based on a thorough financial analysis. It is
also undisputed that the town ultimately concluded that
allocating money toward a new town fire department would
save town residents and businesses” a very significant
amount of money in taxes.
It was almost three years ago that a PBCFR Union
member asserted that PBC planned to effectively double
its ad valorem tax assessments on all Jupiter residents and
business property owners for its contracted fire rescue
services to Jupiter. The intended use of this huge tax
hike was to subsidize the cost of fire rescue services to
rural unincorporated areas that are inherently more costly
to serve than more compact and populated municipal
government service areas.
A Town Council majority took actions in August/
September 2023 to create the new Jupiter Fire Rescue
Department (JFRD) to avert the planned tax hike in PBCFR
tax assessments. I don’t understand how any elected
official representing Town of Jupiter resident and business
taxpayers could act or be expected to act otherwise.
Fire trucks and ambulances have been ordered.
Construction of new JFRD stations is underway. The
JFRD leadership team has been hired and is diligently
working to be prepared to begin full fire/rescue service
operation throughout the town on October 1, 2026. There
is a growing list of firefighters now totaling in excess of
100 candidates who that expressed interest in working
for JFRD when it begins hiring to assemble the full JFRD
staffing level.
We are hopeful that the PBCFR Union, Local 2928, PAC
will take the circuit court judge’s ruling into account and
cease undermining the efforts of fellow first responders
working hard to establish Jupiter’s new Fire/Rescue
Department.
Stay tuned.