2011 HOLIDAY PARADE OF LIGHTS
OUTDOOR DECORATIONS WINNERS!

We want to thank everyone who participated in Rio Vista’s inaugural 2011 Holiday Parade of Lights / Outdoor Decorations Competition.  Each of you did a wonderful job on your holiday displays.  And the hay ride through the neighborhood was a big hit for everyone.  We had a nice turnout of on-line votes, with over 60 residents responding.  The final tally was fairly close, but each of you were a winner—adding to the holiday spirit in our community.  Next year, in addition to individual homes, we are considering having a competition of streets, with each block adopting their own theme for the holidays.

Below are this year’s winners, followed by a list of all the Holiday Homes.

First Place
Home # 10:  “A Southern Christmas” - 1334 Ponce De Leon Dr.

Second Place
Home # 7:  “Tanner’s Twinkling Christmas” - 1216 SE 7 Street

Third Place
Home # 3:  “North Pole on South Rio Vista” - 1105  S. Rio Vista Blvd

Fourth Place
Home # 8:  “Bella Vista” - 1600  SE  7 Street

Honorable Mention:
SE 6 Court (Best Street, East); SE 6 Street (Best Street, West); SE 9 Avenue (Best Avenue)

Thanks again to everyone for participating and helping to bring the holiday spirit to Rio Vista!

Protect Rio Vista #1 objection:

Don’t my property taxes already pay for that!?

Certainly everyone pays their fair share of taxes, and property taxes do go to pay for police services.  Let’s take a quick look:

A $500,000 house in Rio Vista pays a millage rate of 16.4392 or $8,220 in property tax.  The City of Fort Lauderdale millage rate is 4.2536, so the City takes $2,126.80 of the total property tax bill.  According to the City of Fort Lauderdale’s budget documents, the total City budget for 2009 was $327,485,911.  The Police department’s budget was $91,647,022 or approximately 28% of the overall budget.  So, if we take 28% of the City’s $2126,80 on your property taxes, the Police department gets about $595.50 of your property tax bill.  According to the Police budget, the Operations Division (the folks driving the cars out on the street) receives $45,134,284 of the overall Police budget.  That adds up to 49% of the overall Police budget, or $291.80 of your tax bill.  But remember, this is the Police budget for the entire City.  The budget shows 247 officers assigned to Operations.  Let’s say 6 of those are assigned to work Rio Vista, or 2.4%. That means about $7 of the property tax bill actually goes to policing Rio Vista!  $7 out of $8220 works out to about .08%.

We know that prior to the patrol we rarely saw police in our neighborhood.  The reality is that even though there were officers assigned to our area they spent most of their time responding to calls in neighboring areas and rarely made it east of US1.