27
01/10
A City You Would Never Want to Live In
by John Galt
January 27, 2010
First and foremost so the residents and mini Politburo running the town formerly known as North Port Charlotte, now known as North Port, Florida, I have never lived there and believe me, never will. It used to be a friendly quaint little retirement community but once the building boom started and they expanded the city limits, the town elected a giant home owners association also known now as the city commission. The police are basically a bunch of Barney Fifes who spend their time on I-75 and US-41 looking for any excuse beyond just speeding to pull motorists over and write traffic tickets (the only reason they expanded the city limits beyond I-75 I might add). They spend the majority of their time writing traffic citations or assisting code enforcement because you forgot to have a decorative hose reel for the side of your house or some other petty violation. If real crime occurs their they run like little girls to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s office crying for help.
The city commission is compromised of a bunch of HOA types who thought that they could spend taxpayer money like a bunch of insane drunken fools (I would never offend the Navy or sailors) forever and that there would never be a down turn. Well, well, well, fast forward to the current day and age. The town has seen an exodus. Property values are down more than 50%. You have block after block of streets with grass and weeds growing up through the asphalt where properties were never developed or where only one or two homes were built. If those one or two homes are still occupied its because the residents were either flippers caught in the Realtor driven delusion that values never go down or they are too stupid to understand basic economics and lack the capacity to realize that the $200,000 they paid for their homes will never return to that valuation until at least 2020 or beyond. A better name for the town would be Upsidedownville because everything there is in debt for more than the business or residential property is worth.
You see the town was built before the I-75 infrastructure was widened to deal with a growing population. The only jobs available when the boom started were in Fort Myers and Sarasota, a full hour away for both on bad traffic day. Now that those areas are in horrid economic shape, there are no jobs other than the occasional burger flipping or bag boy jobs should some chain foolishly enter into the market. Yet the city of North Ports little group of Himmlers think that people earning $16,000 per year have the ability to maintain their homes, pay the high taxes, pay their mortgages and oh, yes, pay the fines their petty little town imposes because of some of the stupidest appearance regulations north of Naples and the Flower Nazis down there. I wish the residents the best of luck selling the 6000 plus empty homes, 10,000 plus empty lots and oh yes, the apparently hundreds of homes the city is getting ready to seize via administrative legal action. I’m sure that will work out real well for these idiots.
To get a taste of what happens when a HOA takes over a town and stupid people elect a bunch of emotionally disturbed petty souls, read the following stories from the Sarasota Herald Tribune about this town to my south. FOR THE RECORD, I have never received a traffic ticket or citation of any type, but I have been privy to the circus down in that area watching business after business go bankrupt and knowing friends who have abandoned their homes and fled the idiocy. Maybe this will help you understand why a real estate depression in Florida will prevent a recovery as long as the voters continue to put morons like these into office……
