Ron Book announces lawsuit after Miami Beach pulls homeless housing tax measure days before Election Day

Ron Book. Photo via Florida TaxWatch.

Homeless advocates will sue Miami Beach a day after City Commissioners yanked a homeless housing tax referendum off the ballot mid-election.

Ron Book, a lobbyist behind the campaign supporting the proposed tax, told attendees of a Florida TaxWatch event he won’t tolerate the attack on the democratic process.

“I am a nice guy until I am not,” he said.

The legal action comes after Miami Beach City Commissioners voted 4-3 six days ahead of the Nov. 5 election to pull the binding referendum off the ballot.

“I do not believe this is in the best interest of our city,” Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner said, according to the Miami Herald.

More than 20,000 voters in the city have already cast ballots, and Referendum 8 will still appear on ballots cast on Election Day.

The measure called for a 1% food and beverage tax similar to existing levies in other Miami-Dade County jurisdictions. The revenue raised would be used to help house homeless individuals and domestic violence victims. The measure would only apply for businesses that make more than $400,000 in gross annual revenues, and would exempt hotels.

Book said the funding would be used to buy up to 1,500 housing units. That would be a greater number than needed to house more than 1,000 estimated homeless individuals.

“You can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Book said. “When I say we have a plan to end it, I mean it.”

Book at the TaxWatch event discussed the successes of a program funded by food and beverage taxes in Miami-Dade County that has seen success stories including Desmond Meade, a onetime transient who later led a successful statewide effort to restore voting rights for felons after they serve their time. Meade was ultimately named by Time Magazine in 2019 as one of the nation’s most influential people.

Book said he’s angry that a municipality would arbitrarily pull a referendum when people were already voting.

“This is uncharted territory,” he said. “There are no cases around the country where somebody had something on the ballot, and in the middle of voting, six days before election, you’re going to yank the rug out because you don’t trust your constituents to do what needs to be done.”