. "That reflects on a distrust of the current administration," said Bruce Newman, a professor at DePaul University in Chicago and editor of the Journal of Political Marketing.

John Luzietti of West Cocoa is one voter who doesn't trust the government to spend money wisely.

"I think previous shenanigans, politicians promising to spend money one way and then spending it another, that's why I didn't vote for it."

'Message received'

Commissioner Nancy Higgs, D-Melbourne Beach, agreed that voter distrust played a big role in Tuesday's results.

The problem, she said, is not that local government is wasting money, but rather that it doesn't explain well how the money is spent. She points out that as the federal and state governments have cut taxes and spending, more of the burden of providing public services has fallen to local governments.

"Obviously, we need to watch every penny, and we do," Higgs said. "But we need to do a better job of explaining how we are spending taxpayer money. Message received."

The way the tax was presented to the voters might have fed into the lack of trust.

On one hand, the County Commission, the School Board and the cities said the money was needed to complete many "must-do" projects such as building new schools and expanding the jail. On the other hand -- in an effort to drum up as much support as possible -- they included hundreds of millions of dollars for such things as the arts, community pools and library expansions.

To many voters, the inclusion of the "quality-of-life" projects was black-and-white proof that the government wanted money for frills rather than prioritizing spending.

"I think their strategy of including something for everybody absolutely blew up in their face," said County Commissioner Ron Pritchard, R-Merritt Island, one of the leading opponents of the tax.

That fact the most vocal opponents of tax, Pritchard and Clerk of Courts Scott Ellis, R-Melbourne, are themselves elected officials helped fuel the fires of distrust of government.

"I'm part of 'they,' and I don't trust them," Pritchard said.

Political complications

Property tax bills landing in mailboxes on the days leading up to the election certainly affected people's voting, Pritchard said. And he said the County Commission's handling of the "CAPIT" amendment contributed to people's distrust of local government.

In 1996, 85 percent of voters approved the amendment to the county charter to limit the increases in revenue from property taxes to 3 percent a year or the rate of inflation, whichever was less. A judge later ruled the amendment unconstitutional and allowed the commission to exceed those limits -- which it did.

Though the ruling allowed the commission to exceed the revenue cap, it didn't require it to, Pritchard argued.

Politicians disregarded the wishes of 85 percent of the voters, and now it's coming back to haunt them, he said.

Many voters said the 20-year length of the tax -- combined with no timeline on when each project would be finished -- was asking voters to put too much trust in a government they already thought was spending money recklessly.

"If it had been for a realistic length of time . . . and we were told specifically in which years projects would be completed, I would have voted for it," said Ted Edson of Merritt Island.

Lottery spending

Some of the distrust of local government grew out of issues local government had no control over.

Time and time again, voters cited the state lottery as the reason they were voting against a tax that would have built new schools.

In the mid-1980s, Florida voters approved a lottery, a move sold as a way of curing the state's educational woes. Since that time, Florida school performance actually has slipped in most rankings.

"The big beef for me was the lottery, which was supposed to go the schools but didn't," said Maria Stengle of Melbourne.

In fact, every penny of lottery money that was supposed to go to schools did. But over the same period of time, state legislators cut general revenue spending for education. That left schools with less money than they would have had without the lottery.

"The lottery stuff just always comes up as the epitome of government wasting money," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida.

Whether local government really deserves the level of distrust it is receiving from voters is debatable. But the message from voters to the government Tuesday wasn't: Get your fiscal house in order before asking for more money.

The 70-year-old retired executive and one-time paratrooper voted for the proposed sales-tax increase last week. But he hardly trusts government -- an entity he describes as "an animal that has no control over consumption."

So, voting for the penny-per-dollar tax increase Tuesday was more a practical move than anything else, said Baker, who lives in Wickham Lakes, a deed-restricted subdivision of families and retirees near a Super Wal-Mart store in the fast-growing Viera development.

Other Wickham Lakes residents approved the tax, too. While Brevard County voters crushed the sales-tax proposal by nearly a 2-1 ratio, 51.5 percent of Precinct 162 -- which includes the Wickham Lakes residents -- voted in favor of the tax increase. That was among the highest tax-supporting rates of any precinct in the county.

Baker, a father of four and grandfather of 10, figured that backing the levy would get others, such as tourists, to share the tax load.

His precinct of single-family houses that go for $150,000 to $180,000 has no rundown properties.

"The bottom line is government doesn't get it," said Baker, a retired trucking company vice president from North Carolina who is starting his sixth year in the Wickham Lakes subdivision. "When times get tough, you have to cut expenses. But the problem with government is that it spends, spends, spends."

Baker's neighbor, India Crawford, also supported the tax -- but has a different view than Baker when it comes to trust in local government.

Crawford theorized her neighborhood supported the tax more than most precincts because of the young families who want better schools.

The revenue from the sales tax increase would have been split between three groups -- the schools, the cities and the county.

Crawford said she understands money has to come from somewhere to pay for items she sees as necessary such as school improvements, an expanded jail, park trails and arts.

Baker said it was a tough decision to support this tax proposal. If the schools or the county come to the public seeking money, it's up to government to "define their program," Baker said.

"They have to explain what they need and not give us a Christmas wish list. That's what defeated them," he said.

Nov 8, 9:42 PM

Palm Shores voters fed up with promises

By Rachael Lee Coleman
FLORIDA TODAY

PALM SHORES -- Palm Shores-area voters are wising up.

That's how Joseph LaCascia sees it.

Brevard County's overwhelming rejection Tuesday of the county's proposed 1-cent sales tax symbolized voters' distrust of government, he said.

"The politicians say 'give us a penny, and it will cure everything,' and they hype it up with fast talkers," said LaCascia, a Palm Shores resident who teaches economics at Florida Tech's program at Patrick Air Force Base. "But the fact that voters voted against it says they aren't buying it. How much of the taxes we pay actually help the average taxpayer?"

Not much, said residents of Palm Shores, Brevard's smallest incorporated community, who expressed their dissatisfaction at the polls Tuesday. Nearly 38 percent of the voters in precinct 95, which encompasses the entire town, rejected the county's 1-cent sales tax. Just down U.S. 1, where 24 voters cast ballots in precinct 196, the tax was defeated 92 percent to 8 percent.

They are the same voters bearing the brunt of U.S. 1 construction through their town.

"They're fed up with all of these promises," Palm Shores resident Ricardo Matus said.

Matus and other residents of the Honeybrook subdivision said they were frustrated with government not just because the road-widening project is taking so long, but also because the state won't put a stop light at the entrance to the subdivision when the six-lane highway is completed.

"They won't help us, so why should we help them?" asked Barbara Sadala, a Palm Shores resident. Although Sadala voted for the 1-cent sales tax, she understands why her neighbors didn't. Turning left, or north, from Honeybrook onto busy U.S. 1 can be frightening.

But road work isn't the only reason Palm Shores voters distrust government.

Several cited the state's broken 1986 promise to use lottery proceeds to increase education spending. The state has, in fact, spent more than $12 billion of lottery money on education since its inception. But at the same time ,the state Legislature cut the percentage of general revenue money going to schools.

Brevard's proposed sales tax merely played to taxpayers' suspicion.

"It's still not clear to me why we need that," Matus said. "They put more emphasis on the school portion than anything else, but only a small portion of it is actually going to the schools. They're deceiving us."

Residents said the only way to win support for a future sales tax would be to narrow tax proposals to specific causes. And for voters to buy into that, politicians must prove themselves over time.