Karl Dickey - Issues

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The Palm Beach County Budget / Property Taxes

Our Palm Beach County Commissioners, in an effort to please the masses, has over spent for several years and it has only been the last few years the true costs of such wild spending has been revealed. Karl Dickey warned the County Commission for over two years before their frivolous and wasteful spending turned into a crisis, yet they did not listen. At a time when they should have been fiscally responsible and reign in spending, they chose to ignore the warning signs apparently thinking the party would go on forever. Now the county is laden with multi-year obligations which should not have been initialized by our county commissioners. During the 2006 PBC public hearings on the budget Karl Dickey was there standing with Republicans, Libertarians, AND Democrats complaining about the commissioners' proposed budget. Did the commissioners change ONE DIME of the overextended budget? NO!

It is still possible to create fantastic art and public events without the use of tax dollars

Seniors

Seniors would greatly benefit by having Karl Dickey as their county commissioner because he understands the limited income many of our Palm Beach County seniors face and knows that reducing the county tax burden will benefit seniors in extending their purchasing power.

Mr. Dickey feels senior citizens of Palm Beach County should have the ability to opt-out of paying the school tax found on their property tax bills should they have the need or desire to do so.

With the re-focusing on violent crimes & theft/fraud crimes, Karl expects you to not only feel safe however to actually be safe when you go to the mall, the beach, the grocery store, or anywhere in Palm Beach County.

Crime / Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office

Karl has been a long time proponent of doing what is right, rather than what is easy. That's why Karl opposes the current Sheriff Offices' focus on victimless crime rather than crack down on violent crimes and theft. Karl feels we should allow peaceful, honest people to decide for themselves what to eat, drink, read, or smoke and how to dress, medicate themselves, or make love, without fear or criminal penalties. If our Palm Beach County Sheriff's office would do this one mindset change, it could focus on sincere crime prevention and could more than double its resources solving cases with true victims without any escalation of the sheriff's budget to the county. There are some excellent deputies out there that feel the same way he does however cannot speak up for fear of retribution.

Karl feels we should hold criminals responsible for their actions and have them pay full restitution to the victims.

Karl Dickey is one that is not under the thumb of any elite group and will focus on keeping Palm Beach County citizens safe from violent crime and theft. Our past commission has lost its focus, Mr. Dickey will help resolve those issues.

Improve Education of Our Children

It is clear Palm Beach County has failed in its effort to effectively educate students or prepare them for the workplace. This is a violation of their Oath of Office with respect to the Florida Constitution. They were held with the responsibility to provide an "efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education..." - I think we can all agree they have failed our state Constitution and our kids.

Many of our children are quitting before receiving their high school diploma or their GED. This is unacceptable! Now is the time to think outside the box - the box of a government run education system. Government has clearly failed you and your children.

Wealthy people of Palm Beach County have a wide range of choices where to send their children for the best education, we need those same choices available for all parents in Palm Beach County. Karl Dickey feels we should help diversify the choices parents have to educate their child. Students should not be held hostage by government schools and should be able to easily and freely attend government or private schools or enjoy the benefits home schooling has to offer. Home schoolers often top national educational contests and we should not be putting stumbling blocks in their paths to get a quality education.

Karl Dickey is a strong supporter for the expansion of the Step-Up For Students program enabling low-income families to attend the private or public school of their choice. Karl supports a system that makes it possible for every child to get a high quality education.

Isn't your children's education too important to let politicians and bureaucrats control it?

Isn't it time to end the practice of lower income families being forced to send their children to inferior schools? Our current system is nothing more than a trap for putting poor children in poor schools - it doesn't have to be that way.

Our public education system should not rely on a lottery system for our children to have an excellent education, which is very often the case. Parents shouldn't be left with hoping & praying their children will be able to attend a top rated school. A vote for Karl Dickey will improve the odds of your child receiving the high quality education our Florida Constitution provides our young.

The Environment

Karl Dickey would work to eliminate the sovereign immunity given to the county government as it relates to its contamination of land it owns so it can be a better steward of the environment. Mr. Dickey has been a long-time advocate for the environment. He walks the talk.

Most environmental pollution occurs on government property - on government lands and roads, in government lakes, rivers, and streams. If someone dumped garbage on your property every day, you'd call the police and get them to stop the trespasser from polluting your property. But government has allowed companies to dump toxic wastes in its lakes and streams, and to clear-cut or strip mine its lands. In addition, our government is immune from prosecution for polluting its own property which is an outrage.

Our environment would be far better off if naturalist organizations such as the Audubon Society or the Nature Conservancy would take over management of our preserved land. In addition, if we enforced restitution from polluters, even if they are a government entity, the environment would be in far better shape than it is today.

The best solution to the problems of pollution in Palm Beach County is to get property out of the hands of our government. Private owners will always take better care of their land and other resources, because they worry about the future resale value of these things. Government bureaucrats have no vested interest in the future value of anything under their care.

Please go to this page to an excellent article on our U.S. government's abuse of the environment.

Property Rights

Karl has been a long time supporter of property rights. He supported efforts by home owners and business owners of Riviera Beach when, then mayor, Michael Brown attempted to eliminate the rights of property owners by turning over their real estate to a private developer using eminent domain and claiming it was in the best interest of the public. Additionally, Karl worked hard to assist in passing state legislation to restrict the use of eminent domain so now Florida has the strongest property rights legislation in the country. Here is a perfect example of a similar circumstance presented by actor Drew Carey.

Inclusionary zoning, eminent domain, and unfair building restrictions result in higher costs to acquire property, thereby making it more difficult for lower income citizens to purchase their first home. This results in a very difficult cycle of poverty or unhealthy lending practices targeting vulnerable, lower income individuals.

In addition, Mr. Dickey knows that taking personal property is wrong and should be eliminated. Florida and Palm Beach County's tax policy causes our lower income citizens to pay a higher proportion of property taxes, via their unprotected rental payments, than those that have the Save Our Homes exemption. This is fundamentally unfair and must end.

Small Business Owners

Karl has been a serious small business owner/operator since the age of 16 years old and is well acquainted with the issues that face the business community. He will work to reduce or eliminate the red tape involved in opening and running a business in Palm Beach County so business owners can focus on their business. He feels that peaceful, honest people should be able to offer their goods and services to willing consumers without a hassle from our county government.

Mr. Dickey would like to see the elimination of irrational occupational licensing ordinances and other failed government policies in Palm Beach County and Florida. When government power is used to limit who may enter a field, what services they may provide, where they may be located, and how much they may charge, a consumer's freedom to secure these services is curtailed.

Transportation

Palm Beach County and other metro areas of Florida need innovative solutions to the serious transportation issues that they face. The Florida legislature stands in the way of those solutions. The Florida DOT's solutions have been to simply widen lanes of existing roads. A federal system of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, while noble in theory, has been a dismal failure. It is encouraging to see they are now beginning to test more ideas from Libertarians and we expect positive results.

I would recommend reading the IBTTA report, the congestion relief analysis from Washington State and Reason Foundation articles by Robert Poole. Another source is the book Street Smart: Competition Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Roads by Gabriel Roth.

Following are recommendations to improve PBC transportation:

Adopt a network of "fast" lanes and adopt variable speed toll lanes.

Adoption of bike-bus lanes for so long as we have a bus system in PBC.

Elimination of the Red Light Camera program to make intersections safer. This may seem contrary to common sense, however the data does not lie and red light cameras actually make intersections less safe.

Replace HOV lanes with HOT lanes. HOT lanes are usable only by paying vehicles, emergency vehicles, buses, and vanpools. This system is up and running in other cities with effective results. If our state legislature was serious about effective results these and other innovative solutions would already be in place.

Creation of truck-only toll (TOT) lanes for increased safety and efficiency.

Eliminate the "your tax money down the drain" light rail system. We can use that tax money in more effective areas and we can sell off those assets to cut our losses. We can use those funds to smartly improve our roadway system and thereby improve safety & congestion. No one loves the idea of a light rail system more than me, however the bottom line is that it cannot work to be self-sufficient in South Florida. Not only are we paying to ride the Tri-Rail directly through fares, but our tax money is funding it as well.

Encourage telecommuting & flexible work hours. With great technologies now here it is easier than ever for companies to have employees work from home as if they are in the office. In addition, having employees come in at different hours can greatly improve traffic congestion.

Red Light Cameras

Burt Aaronson & Co. recently won an effort to pass an ordinance in Palm Beach County to install red light cameras at county road intersections. After seeing how this program has failed in other areas of the country Karl successfully worked on the state level to prevent the state from allowing law to be passed permitting red light cameras. Please see this news release by the Libertarian Party of Florida on the issue. One would assume red light cameras would create safer intersections however the opposite effect is what has been seen in other areas of the country. In fact many municipalities, counties, and states actually remove or ban them after they have been installed due to the dramatic increase of accidents they cause.

Although the cameras are expected to be installed in late 2008, it is highly likely the State of Florida will ban them in 2009. Another failed program by our county commissioners.

"Every dollar spent to punish a drug user or seller is a dollar that cannot be spent collecting restitution from a robber. Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child. Every trial held to prosecute a drug user or seller is court time that could be used to prosecute a rapist in a case that might otherwise have been plea bargained."

-- Randy E. Barnett, "Curing the Drug-Law Addiction"