The independent nonpartisan tax research institute projects Winter Garden will lose $5.4 million in property taxes next year alone and another $10.4 million in 2028.]

But back to the Facebook commenters, who simply were not having it. Especially those still fuming over the city's cancellation of Halloween events last year in a cost-cutting move.

“Who paid for that big sign?” demanded one such commenter on VoxPopuli’s page, writing beneath the photo of the two signs at Park Avenue and Plant Street.

Those signs read Thank you, Residents. Your property taxes pay to maintain our right-of-ways for a safer Winter Garden.

“How much did that sign cost taxpayers?” another posted. “In 10 years I have not seen a sign ‘thanking us,’ until now when they need us.”

A third commenter thought the city was putting its proverbial thumb on the scale, attempting to sway the populace.  

“This should be illegal,” he posted. “The city has no right to spend taxpayer dollars on influencing people's votes.”

More than one commenter pointed to the signs as evidence of “excessive” government spending that would be checked by tax reform.

“So they wasted money on this? Vote yes!”

“That sign probably cost thousands!”

“Propaganda 100%!”

“The crazy thing is, they’re using your tax money to advertise you paying more tax money. “

And it didn’t take long for conspiracy theorists to surface with unsubstantiated claims that elected officials had received kickbacks from no-bid contractors; and that the business for producing the signs had been tossed to friends or family members.

I asked City Manager Jon Williams what the deal was with the signs.

“The whole point of the signs is to raise awareness,” he told me earlier this week. “We understand that there are people on both sides of the issue, and some have already made up their mind, and there are still a lot of folks out there that have yet to make up their mind or may not exactly know what the property tax is funding.”

That did seem to be the case for one chap who appeared to believe that property taxes funded childcare, and if parents would only parent their children, we wouldn’t even need taxes.

Anyway … in the name of awareness raising, the city produced 140 signs of various sizes — stake signs, sandwich-boards, pole banners and custom banners. The whole package, Williams told me, ran the city $10,837 (including replacements for two signs that had been vandalized).

It averages out to about $77.40 per sign.

“That represents twenty-one hundredths of one percent (0.21%) of the first year’s reduction in property taxes,” Williams told me in an email.

Talk about budgeting down to the penny.

Williams had attached a copy of the City of Winter Garden Purchasing Manual to his email. City projects, which cost between $5,001 and $15,000, like the signs, need three vendor quotes (verbal or electronic), the manual states. (VoxPopuli has made a public records request for those bid documents.) The manual also states employees cannot accept vendor gifts nor are they permitted to “…negotiate or participate in the selection process concerning any City transaction from which such employee may personally profit …”

Williams said contrary to the theory that the sign printing had been quietly handed off to someone's nephew or brother-in-law, the city has been using the same three design companies since the early- to mid-aughts, with a fourth added to mix in 2014.

“These are routine, recurring commercial relationships, not one-off awards to a newly-connected company, which is generally the pattern one would expect to see if a contract were being steered improperly,” Williams said in his email.

When I talked with him earlier this week, after the city's last budget hearing, Williams told me he hadn’t gotten much feedback himself about the signs. But he was glad they have sparked some conversations.  

“Our goal is to make sure everybody can educate themselves accordingly and make an informed decision,” he said. “The fact that people are talking about it, whether they are for or against it, is exactly what our intention was, to get the community to talk about it. Because if [Amendment 3] is approved, there is going to be some negative consequences that occur as a result of it.”