PALM COAST OBSERVER
PalmCoastObserver.com
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THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2018
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BRIEFS School millage rate: Lowest in 25 years, still a tax increase
Photo by Brian McMillan
The yards of neighbors MaryAnn Meyers and Rosemary Roma have been damaged by wild hogs. The Romas’ home is up for sale, but the lawn has scared away some potential buyers.
Hogs invade Hidden Lakes Hogs have caused thousands of dollars in damage, leaving homeowners frustrated. Trappers are trying to remove the hogs. DOMINIC-MADORI DAVIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
W
hen Arnie Roma and his family pulled into the driveway of his home in Palm Coast’s Hidden Lakes subdivision one night last month, Roma noticed something strange near his mailbox: The lights shining outside illuminated a wild hog, something he’d never seen before. Days later, Roma walked into his backyard to find another hog. Roma expected the hog to run away, but it just sat there, staring back at him. He thought of the grandkids who were in his home at the time and wondered if they would be safe. Roma, like many residents who live in Hidden Lakes, has been dealing with wild hogs ever since. The hogs are coming from the swamp east of the subdivision on Old Kings Road; some speculate that they’ve been seeking dry ground in neighborhoods because heavy rains have flooded the swamp. In addition to making some neighbors nervous, the boars have been plowing through lawns, digging up trees and destroying cable lines and sprinkler lines. Now some residents are wondering: Who is responsible, and who is going to pay for it all? PEE AND VEGETABLE OIL?
Cost is the primary concern for Hidden Lakes resident MaryAnn Meyers, who returned from a trip a month ago and discovered that wild hogs had dug up chunks of her backyard lawn. Searching for help and answers, Meyers contacted her homeowners association, Flagler County Animal Control and the city of Palm Coast. “Most of us are on Social Security and on a budget,” Meyers said. “I didn’t expect to have to re-sod my new home.” But the city of Palm Coast does
not pay for trappers. In fact, City Manager Jim Landon said, the city doesn’t have any role at all in wildlife removal. “We don’t have the equipment or the expertise,” he said. The city did arrange for a trapper to get access to the woods near the subdivision. Meyers has had a hard year: Her dog just died, her brother had a heart attack, and her husband has been recovering from back surgery. Now, a hog invasion. When she finally reached animal control, she was given something to try: Have her husband collect his urine when he peed first thing in the morning, then mix the urine with vegetable oil and spread it around the perimeter of the home. Next, she was instructed, leave an AM/FM radio playing outside to project the sound of human voices into the swamp. The idea was that the hogs would connect the human voices to the smell of human urine, realize the yard was human territory, and back away. But the plan seemed ludicrous to Meyers, and she felt even more helpless. ELECTRIC FENCE?
Wild hogs are not new to the area. There was a similar invasion in 2017 in the Woodlands, north of Hidden Lakes. And Hidden Lakes homeowner Rachel Huzior said she’s heard the hogs ever since she moved to the area in December 2016. But they haven’t caused this much damage until recently. The hogs have torn up grass on three sides of Huzior’s screened lanai, ruining hundreds of square feet of sod. One panel of her screen is torn near the base, and she worries that a hog could eventually breach the lanai. “I can’t even come back here,” Huzior said. The hogs also damaged trees and decorative lights and stones in the backyard. Rachel’s husband, Darryl, estimates that repairs will
cost around $3,000. Trappers have installed a trap in the Huziors’ backyard, but it’s faulty; the hogs have been eating the bait and escaping. Arnie and Rosemary Roma also have a trap in their yard, and they’ve added something extra: a temporary electric fence surrounding the backyard. But the hogs responded by migrating to their front yard, where there is little the Romas can do: Per the rules of the HOA, residents can only build fences in their backyards. With the cost of repairing the damage reaching thousands of dollars, Huzior and several other residents believe that the city — or the land developer, Jim Paytas — should at least be responsible for building a fence to keep the hogs in the preserve and out of their yards. Paytas, the subdivision’s builder and the president of its HOA, disagrees. “It’s a natural disaster, like a hurricane or a tornado,” Paytas said. “Nothing we can take care of. Gators come out [of the preserve], too. It’s unfortunate, but it will eventually take care of itself.” Although construction has been known to drive hogs out of the woods and into existing residential areas, Paytas pointed out that the land under construction to the north has been cleared for years, so it’s unlikely that this hog problem is man-made. He said it’s likely that heavy rains that have pushed the hogs out of the swamp. But, he said, the trappers are at work, and “it should be getting better.” As of the week of July 23, the hogs have started damaging common areas in the community, Meyers said. Paytas did not immediately respond to a message asking who would pay for those repairs. THE SOUND OF TRAP DOORS
Until the hogs decide to go back into the wetlands, residents are left handling the damage and the repair costs. Arnie and Rosemary Roma have had trouble trying to sell their home, which has been on the market for seven months, as new
Courtesy photo
SIX FEET LONG, 150 POUNDS
Wild hogs, which can grow as long as 6 feet and weigh more than 150 pounds, are an invasive nuisance species in Florida, notorious for ripping up lawns as they use their tusks to hunt for grubs. They were brought to the country by Spanish explorers — including, possibly, Hernando de Soto in 1539, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Hogs can legally be trapped and hunted year-round. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission maintains a list of wildlife trappers who work in Flagler County at public. myfwc.com/HGM/NWT/ NWTSearch.aspx. — JONATHAN SIMMONS
damage to their lawn continues to appear each day and night. “We had a buyer yesterday,” Arnie Roma stated. “[They took a] second look around, brought the whole family. [They asked], ‘What happened? You need a new lawn.’ They didn’t make an offer. That was the end of it.” So each night, as the Romas prepare for bed and put their grandchildren to sleep, they hear the slam of trap doors shutting on the cages in the backyard. The hogs begin to shuffle and grunt, and Arnie and Rosemary try to fall asleep to the sounds of the pigs. Dozens of hogs have been caught. But many more remain. — Brian McMillan contributed to this story.
Flagler Schools has set its tentative millage rate for the coming year at 6.410. The district’s total budget in the coming year will be $189,672,241, of which $104,758,000 will go the district’s general fund. More than 80% of the general fund budget will go into salaries and benefits. The other largest expenditures will be textbooks and school resource deputies. The 6.410 proposed millage for the coming year is lower than the current year’s millage rate of 6.639 — and lower than the millage rate has been in 25 years, Flagler Schools Finance Director Tom Tant said in a presentation before the School Board July 24. But because property values are rising and the new rate will bring in more money than the district brought in last year, the new rate is still considered a tax increase. The largest portion of that rate, the school district Required Local Effort (or RLE) millage, is set by the Florida Legislature for each county. The RLE property tax rate required of Flagler County by the state is the tenth highest out of Florida’s 67 counties, while the amount the district will get back per student is the sixth lowest. Last year it was third lowest. “At least it’s in the right direction,” School Board member Colleen Conklin said. Currently, Flagler’s RLE millage rate is 4.3910. mills, or $4.391 per $1,000 in taxable value. The coming year’s will be 4.1620 mills, which will be 1.66% over the rollback rate — the rate that would bring in the same amount of revenue as was brought in this year. The discretionary rate will remain the same at 0.748 mills, and the capital outlay rate will remain the same at 1.5 mills. The revenue expected from the coming year’s 4.162 RLE millage is $39,886,827. Last year’s RLE revenue was $39,108,012. Capital outlay millage is expected to generate $14,375,358 in the coming year, compared to $13,359,603 this year. The discretionary millage of 0.748 mills is expected to generate $7,168,512 this year. It generated $6,661,989 last year. The district has slightly over $6 million in its fund balance, of which $5.6 million is unassigned. The district is 34th out of the 67 districts in terms of fund balance, Tant said. The School Board approved the tentative budget and tentative millage rate unanimously.
Army Corps gets $17 million for local beach project The Army Corps of Engineers is appropriating $17 million to undertake a beach renourishment program along 2.6 miles of beach in Flagler Beach. “They got us full design and construction money, and they hope they can design it quick,” County Administrator Craig Coffey said July 23. In addition to a stretch of beach renourishment financed primarily with FDOT money, the Army Corps project would bring the section of beach that will be renourished in Flagler Beach to 6.25 miles. Meanwhile, the county is 5.75 miles into a separate 12-mile dune reconstruction project.