Yet another reason why developers don't want to provide affordable housing

The 4th DCA released this opinion on April 20th, holding that, despite a binding agreement to rent 75% of the apartments to low or very low income tenants, the non-profit landowner could only receive available tax exemptions for those units that were actually occupied by low income tenants on January 1 of the tax year. That is, any units that were vacant and between low income tenants would be taxed as though they were market rate units even if the unit had been occupied by a qualified tenant in the past and the landowner was obligated to rent it to a lower income tenant in the future.

There was no allegation that the apartment complex was not meeting its obligation, only that there were some vacancies.

While the court went through some understandable gyrations given the language of the statute, agreement and relevant principles, ultimately the court relied on the doctrine of "strict application" of tax exemptions rather than on the requirement that interpretations follow legislative intent. The extreme result is that instead of the non-profit owner of these units being exempt for taxes on 75% of the units, the owner is subject to property tax liability for any units not so rented.

You can see the result coming: landlords won't sign leases for affordable units that don't provide a requirement for occupancy on January 1. Then the appraisers' will attack that and demand some "proof" that someone was actually there. It's just foolish, and this decision, while intellectually consistent, simply creates absurd results that would not have been contemplated by the Legislature.

Blog Censorship Gains Support - CNET News.com

Blog censorship gains support CNET News.com

By Renai LeMay

"Most Americans believe bloggers should not be allowed to publish sensitive personal information about individuals, according to a new survey.

Web hosting company Hostway this week released the results of its poll of 2,500 Americans on blogging. Eighty percent of respondents did not believe that bloggers should be allowed to publish home addresses and other personal information about private citizens.

A further 72 percent favored censorship of personal information about celebrities, and 68 percent, information about elected or appointed government officials such as judges or mayors. "

Three state education employees fired for lewd e-mail

Three state education employees fired for lewd e-mail

"Three state education employees fired for lewd e-mail

Associated Press report 04/26/05

TALLAHASSEE - Three state Education Department employees have been fired and a fourth has been told she will be fired for sending lewd e-mails to colleagues. "

"'This is basically a case of people sending very offensive e-mails to one another on government computers,' state Education Commissioner John Winn said Monday. 'This has been the most troubling thing to me since I've been commissioner.' "

Editorial Note: Is it possible that the abysmal performance of our Florida School System should trouble him more than naughty words?

Supremes Give with One Hand and Take with the Other - or Why Citrus Canker Litigation Will Be Back Again

The latest round of the citrus canker wars was unresolved by the Florida Supreme Court on April 14 when it issued this opinion. The Supremes overturned the 3d DCA's opinion, which basically held that because the Legislature had determined that all trees within a 1900 foot radius of an infected tree should be considered infected, those trees had no value and no taking resulted from their destruction.

But the court did not reverse the portion of the lower court ruling that held that the aggrieved landowners did not have an inverse condemnation claim.

Instead the court ruled that a deeply flawed and subject-to-funding statutory provision for compensating homeowners reached back to provide an avenue for compensation. It also interpreted the statute to provide greater-than-statutory compensation where a judge determined the value of taken trees.

But it did not hold that the statute had to provide full and fair compensation - which under Florida's constitution means that if your property is taken, your attorney's fees (and experts) get covered. That flat out means that the majority opinion is internally contradictory, holding that the trees weren't "of no value" (and therefore were taken), but not providing the constitutionally mandated remedies for takings - full compensation, including attorneys' fees.

Pariente concurred and claimed that this statute met the Haire test that required "just and fair" compensation. She also claimed that the homeowners were better off with a statutory remedy than constitutional inverse condemnation because they wouldn't have to prove a taking against nuisance and "imminent danger" defenses. Essentially, Pariente is saying that if the Legislature confesses a taking and doesn't make you litigate the entire case (but does make you litigate your damages), it can dispense with the need to provide attorney's fees - even if the result is that you'd have to spend more in attorney's fees than you'd get in damages.

Lewis concurred in the result only, and would have held that the landowners had a constitutional inverse condemnation claim. He's on the right side here, but not speaking out strongly enough.

Quince dissented, claiming that the majority twisted the statute to provide relief that wasn't there and that wasn't constitutionally acceptable. She would have allowed an inverse condemnation claim. She didn't mention fees directly, but clearly is disturbed by the way tha the majority is allowing a limited statutory right to displace a more complete constitutional right.

We're going to see this come back, for two reasons. One, there's no obligation under the statute to fund the awards, so a bunch of people may get judgments that they can't collect. If this is a taking, then that's not acceptable. Two, there's no statutory provision for attorneys fees in this case. Courts are going to deny them, and the whole issue will wend its way back to the Supreme Court to resolve the resulting constitutional issue.

The entire mess is like the nasty 1983/1988 decisions that hold that you can't get attorney's fees in those cases where the damages are just nominal. Essentially the courts have been holding that if a violation of your rights is worth less than the cost to fight for them, you don't get your attorney's fees. In other words, the government can violate your rights all it wants to as long as the damages aren't above the cost of the fees to object.

Police Data Sharing Is A Work In Progress

By Larry Greenemeier, InformationWeek
April 25, 2005

URL: Info Week

"The federal government's disclosure this month that it won't continue funding the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, closes a chapter on a controversial law-enforcement data-sharing pilot project created in the wake of 9/11. Three years and $12 million later, just two states will continue using the technology, as other projects compete to meet the goal of better sharing of crime data across state lines."

U.S. Postal-order Scams Surging

U.S. postal-order scams surging



"U.S. postal-order scams surging

By Tom Zeller Jr. The New York Times



WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2005



Phony checks have been the stock in trade of online fraud artists for years. Now, the authorities say they are noticing a surge in schemes involving sophisticated counterfeiting of a different form of payment: U.S. postal money orders. And the fleecing of victims often begins in an e-mail inbox."

University Fires Employees for Porn

The Cavalier Daily



"Computer porn leads to U.Va. employee firings - University releases warning against viewing pornography on University computers; employee arrested for possession of child pornography



Alex Sellinger, Cavalier Daily Senior Associate Editor



The University publicly issued a warning and dismissed two employees this semester after fellow employees reported they had used University computers to view and download pornography. A Dining Services employee was arrested in February and charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography, the University reported in its warning issued April 11. "