Miami Libertarians successfully campaign to defeat proposed Special Taxing District

On Tuesday, the Miami-Dade County Libertarian Party celebrated its first ever victory in a special election in Southwest Dade. After just two weeks of campaigning, local Libertarians managed to defeat a proposed Special Taxing District in the remote suburban neighborhood of Sea Pines Estate.

“This is great news,” said Tony Sellers, the LPMD chairman, upon hearing the results. He also added that while winning a referendum is not the same as getting someone elected into office, “we needed a win.”

The Special Taxing District would have, if passed, increased local residents’ taxes by $1,200 to $1,550 just in 2014, to pay for a contract negotiated between Miami-Dade County and Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) to install street lights in the neighborhood.

But the local affiliate of the Libertarian Party took notice of the special election and adopted a resolution in January to make this the party’s first activist work. According to the wording of the resolution approved, the Volunteer/Grassroots Committee took it upon itself to campaign in Sea Pines Estate.

After sending two sets of mailers and campaigning door-to-door for this mail-only election, the results finally came in late Tuesday afternoon: almost 66% of the neighborhood’s voters refused the Special Taxing District.

This represents the first time since 2010 that a Special Taxing District is brought down by local residents. Last year, a similar proposal in another neighborhood was passed by 100% of the voting residents.