The Palm Beach County Tax Collector’s office listed Florida Power & Light as the biggest payer among the 600,000 property tax notices it will mail out on Saturday. Its bill? About $33 million. Other big taxpayers include Bellsouth Telecommuniations at $8.7 million, Town Center at $7 million, U.S. Sugar Corp. at $5.5 million and Breakers Palm Beach at $5.3 million. In total, the bills represent about $3.2 billion in property tax revenues for the County. [Palm Beach Post]

An Everglades Foundation poll has revealed that 75 percent of Floridian respondents back the $536 million, 73,000-acre wetlands purchase that would aim to restore the area. An additional 78 percent of respondents supported ‘strict land-use controls’ to block residential or commercial development in the farm belt southeast of Lake Okeechobee. The poll, which drew criticism from Florida Crystals Corp., a principal opponent of the land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp., included 600 likely voters statewide. Florida Crystals wants to use some of its land for the proposed inland port that’s now under consideration by the Port of Palm Beach Commission. [Miami Herald]

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Don Hafele gave the nod to issuing $650
million worth of bonds to fund the purchase of 73,000 acres of U.S.
Sugar Corp. land for Everglades restoration. The South Florida Water
Management District sought permission to buy another 107,000 acres, but
Hafele issued a limited ruling for the project. Eric Buermann, chairman
of the water management district’s governing board, called it a
promising first step in the environmental restoration initiative. [more]

Governor Charlie Crist’s
plan to purchase U.S. Sugar Corp. land for Everglades restoration at a price of
$1.34 billion may fall through as a result of South Florida’s declining property
values. Property values in the 16 counties that make up the South Florida Water
Management District, which is responsible for purchasing the Everglades land,
are expected to drop at least 14 percent this year due to the housing crisis, leading property tax revenue to drop
also. And without enough tax revenue, district officials said they might not be
able to afford the annual $100 million debt payments on the U.S. Sugar land
deal. 
[more]