In what appears to be a coup for conservatives in New York, Dede Scozzafava, the Republican Candidate has suspended her campaign 3 days short of the election. She garnered the nomination over Doug Hoffman in a closed party committee process. When it was revealed by among others, Fred Thompson & Sarah Palin, that Scozzafava had a fairly liberal voting record in the State Legislature, Hoffman’s # shot way up and support began to pour in from across the country. This is a win for conservatives in that Hoffman will caucus with the Republicans but will not be beholden to the party.

After doing some digging, I found out that the total costs of defending the taxpayers against the assessment lawsuit as of the middle of this month were approaching $7000. For a county where the taxpayers have to watch every dime, this is not insignificant.

What total will be enough before Mr. Chester is done with us? $10,000? $20,000? Its not hard to see that if this drags out through next year that the totals will reach that and and much more.

The landowners, who under the direction and advice of Francis Chester have sued the County to roll back their tax assessments to the 2005 levels, are not the only taxpayers in this county. I do not think Francis Chester is a hero. I think he is wrong. He has a right to petition the government but where does that leave the rest of us? All taxpayers bear the burden of any legal costs to defend themselves against this suit, to say nothing of the costs of subsidizing the plaintiffs’ tax burden if the suit succeeds. I’m going to do some digging to find those #s.

The assessment does not reflect the actual methodology used to arrive at each taxpayer’s burden. That is done through the budget process (total budget x proportion owed through real estate tax /# of landowners). The county will collect the same amount of tax from taxpayer Doe no matter what Doe’s assessment is at. If his tax assessment is artificially high, he is subsidizing another’s tax burden and if his assessment is artificially low, others are subsidizing his.

The assessment merely attempts to occasionally reflect the changing market conditions. Any attempt to arbitrarily change it for a select group of people merely shifts the tax burden onto the rest of us.

When I was in school, my roommate who had been in ROTC,was fond of a particular saying.  When I had a difficult decision and was waffling back and forth even after taking advice, he would say, “Whit, its time for a Command Decision.”   He simply meant that the issue was clear, the information would not get any better and that I needed to make up my mind and face the consequences.

While the decisions I had to make then were admittedly of a simpler nature then those that the President currently faces concerning our Middle East Strategy, in particular Afghanistan,   the saying is rooted in military decision making.  Tough decisions by definition will not be popular ones.    You will not have perfect information and waiting will not perfect the information you do have.

President Obama is facing a crisis in Afghanistan.  Our enemies there are clearly testing his resolve to see this fight to the end.   The Commanding General there has made clear his recommended strategy.  Regardless of the eventual decision (which I believe needs to be to take the General’s advice), by stringing this out, the President weakens our forces in country, our allies and creates the perception that military decisions needing immediate attention are being delayed due to their political implications for Domestic Policy, in this case the floundering Health Care initiative.

President Obama, its time for a Command Decision in Afghanistan. 

Disclosure- I was previously employed by Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal and worked on a portion of the Augusta County Assessment.*

Its been some time since the reassessment battle of the late winter.
When the dust settled, the Board of Supervisors voted to accept the
assessment and lower the tax rate by 10 cents.  Francis Chester had collected his petition signatures (10k), argued his case that the reassessment should be rolled back to the 2005 values, filed his lawsuit and the judge set the court date for early October. Spring and Summer have come and gone and now we receive news that the County has directed its attorney to file motions to dismiss the lawsuit/s and compel Mr. Chester to pay the County’s legal costs.  Consternation in the NewsLeader and some local blogs promptly followed.

Most of the commentary would have us believe that the position of the lawsuit
is the overwhelming opinion and will of the citizenry and that attacking the
assessed values is the correct way to go about keeping taxes low.  I disagree.

On the issue of the petition.  There are almost 40,000 properties in Augusta County.  At best, this petition represents the desires of one of every three property owners.  That is before taking into account the likelihood that many of the signers are not property owners. (Update 10/2 Comm of Rev claims under Oath that 8k signers are property owners) Significant but not overwhelming.

I saw the #s on a daily basis when I worked on this project and never saw evidence to suggest that the values could support that conclusion(2005 rollback).  There was definitely a  slight movement back in SOME neighborhoods but nothing to suggest a free fall back to 2005 levels.  Other then objecting on the principle that we were in the middle of a bad economy and that this assessment would equate to higher taxes, there was very little evidence produced to suggest that there was something systematically wrong with the assessments.  Dave Hickey (Owner & Principal, Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal) can be gruff and forthright, that does not mean his analysis was invalid.

For those citizens who didn’t sign the petition… are we supposed to accept the premise that assessments should be rolled back to the 2005 values?  Why should we be forced to subsidize artificially low assessments?  Perhaps the County’s attorney is acting in our best interests in attempting to recoup some of our tax money spent defending what amounts to little more then an attempt to build a political reputation and a misguided  costly effort to be advocates for the taxpayers.

The real battle is the budget.  If you ignore that while
taking easy political shots at a process that happens once every four years, you allow the assessment to become a shell game.  More on that later.

Its not a done deal yet, but its clear the whole plan is in danger. Pressure MUST be kept up, especially with Warner & Webb.

Public Option Goes Down – Tevi Troy – The Corner on National Review Online

Shared via AddThis

Seems that while I enjoy running a blog, I don’t have the time right now to truly commit to doing it the way I envision. My idea is/was to have a blog mainly dedicated to local issues. With work commitments that have me out of town, its very difficult to stay abreast of events and issues at home or even find enough time to procure usage of a connected computer. I’m going to keep the blog up, but I expect to post only sparingly, at least until I am working from the Valley.

This week, BB&T sent this letter to affected clients, outlining the fact that the Churchville Branch will be shuttered, with all operations moving to the main Saunton Branch in the downtown area.  The Churchville Branch served the clients in the greater part of Western Augusta County (North River, Deerfield, West Augusta, Churchville, Swoope). No specifics are given as to costs, fewer clients, etc.

One of BB&T’s strengths, in my opinion,is the fact that it has branches all over Virginia in many small communities.   Thats a result of its takeover of  First Virginia in 2003-2004.  Its often the only bank in town, giving it an edge over national and local competitors.  No word on the BB&T location in Craigsville.

PDF of letter

Its disturbing to say the least that Obama doesn’t understand or ignores the problems with this nomination.  Conflicts of interest abound here, with Bill Clinton’s various connections to foreign governments and interests.  Bill Clinton has accepted millions in consulting and speech fees from abroad since the end of his Presidency.  Then there is the issue of the Clinton Library Donor List.  Perhaps most troubling (again, in the context of Hillary’s nomination for Secretary of State) are the significant contributions from Middle Eastern interests.

While there is nothing legally wrong there, its easy to see the conflicts that could easily arise whenever a issue comes forth involving a Foreign interest that has given money to the Clintons in some form or fashion. Is it wise and prudent for Obama to nominate Hillary Clinton for this post at this crucial time for the US Foreign Policy?