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Homeowners in Atlantic Beach will be handing over a lot of extra cash to village increasing property taxes by 87 percent
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Yeah, leaders say that the money is going to fix an admin issue, but as Fox News' Duarte Gildino shows us, residents feel the money might be used for something else
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I'm probably going to have to pay an additional $2,000 on my village taxes, roughly
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$2,000 more because Atlantic Beach taxes are going up by 87 percent, the largest hike in village history
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At a packed village meeting, officials blame a county tax miscalculation that went unnoticed for years
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But people who live here say it's also about a lawsuit that's become expensive and explosive
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There are a thousand residential properties in the village. So every million dollars of legal bills or settlement costs every resident a thousand dollars
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In 2021 Chabad of the Beaches bought a former bank building in Atlantic Beach to open a religious center Days later the village voted to seize the property through imminent domain Chabad sued Through court documents they claim the move wasn
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about zoning, but rather, quote, an ongoing coordinated campaign driven by animus towards
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Chabad's Hasidic Jewish identity. A federal judge blocked the village's takeover, saying Chabad
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would likely win. But the fight didn't stop, and the legal costs soared. The board signed a
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settlement agreement with provide for $400,000. Now, since November of 2023, we've added hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. City records obtained by Fox 5 show
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Atlantic Beach budgeted just under $50,000 for legal expenses last year. This year
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more than $600,000. That cost is landing squarely on the people who live here
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What we're expecting is transparency and how you're writing this bill. For a typical homeowner, village property taxes could jump from $3,000 to more than $5,000
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In Atlantic Beach, Duarte Giraldino, Fox 5 News
