Opponents of Florida's property-tax Amendment 3 went to court over its original ballot title, “Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes,” arguing that the wording was biased and promoted the measure rather than simply explaining it. A Leon County judge agreed and ordered Attorney General James Uthmeier to rewrite the title. The result is far less catchy: “Increased Homestead Exemption; Lower Cap on Increases in Non-Homesteaded Property Assessments.”
But the court victory may have had an unexpected consequence. Gov. Ron DeSantis says the new plain-language title is actually polling better than the original. Instead of a political-sounding slogan, voters now see exactly what the amendment proposes: a larger homestead exemption and a lower cap on annual assessment increases for non-homestead property. Amendment 3 will go before Florida voters on November 3 and will require 60% approval to pass.
The bigger property-tax debate won't necessarily end there. DeSantis has also raised concerns that local governments could respond to lower property-tax revenue by increasing millage rates, fees or other charges, and has suggested lawmakers may consider limits on local government budget growth after the election.
For taxpayers, that raises a second question beyond Amendment 3: If the state lowers your property taxes, should local governments be prevented from finding another way to collect the savings?
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If you've noticed Google Search feels harder to use than it used to, you're not imagining it. Researchers, tech analysts, and everyday users largely agree the platform has become more cluttered, less accurate, and more frustrating over time.
Rather than fixing the problem, Google has responded by pushing users toward Gemini, its AI assistant, now prominently featured on the search page. The idea is that Gemini will answer your questions directly — cutting out the middleman of actual websites.
The trouble is, Gemini frequently makes things up.
Journalist David Horovitz of the Times of Israel described spending hours trying to verify basic factual information for a recent column — only to be fed false information by Gemini repeatedly. When challenged, Gemini admitted to fabricating answers, inventing plausible-sounding headlines that never existed, and conflating separate events. At one point it acknowledged there was little point in asking it questions if it was simply going to make up facts — and then proceeded to do exactly that again.
That's where Palm Coast Local comes in.
When you want to know what's happening at Town Center, which local business just opened on Palm Coast Parkway, or what's going on at your kid's school — no algorithm is going to give you a straight answer. Palm Coast Local is run by people who live here, report here, and actually know the difference between a rumor and a fact.
We don't guess. We don't hallucinate. We don't feed you a confident-sounding answer pulled from nowhere. We cover this community because we're part of it — and when you search PalmCoastLocal.com, you're getting real local journalism from real local people, not a machine trying to sound like one.
For local news, local answers, and local truth — skip the algorithm. Come home to Palm Coast Local.