Ask the candidates...
The BP has been sending questions to the GOP candidates for Stokes County commissioner. Leon Inman & Jimmy Walker have not responded to any of the questions.
Question: Considering that the housing market is beginning to go flat, what would you do to help keep property taxes low and what would you do to work toward a property tax cut?
Ronda Jones: The housing market has been going flat for years. Foreclosures are a record high for several reasons. The economy is volatile. Housing has developed through “soft money”. Variable rate mortgages have placed people in jeopardy. Stokes County has seen the least amount of property transfers since 2001. On the other hand, farmers are aging out. In turn, being bought out for development, i.e., residential development known as “sprawl”. Our property tax rate is lower than many counties around us, therefore, encouraging sprawl. This trend has brought many challenges to our county. The most obvious challenge is the strain it places on our infrastructure. This includes all administrative, social and educational services. Thus, naturally requiring more funding. So what are we to do?
The question asks what I will do about keeping property taxes low and working toward a property cut. To answer, I must first begin by reminding the citizens that I will only be one of five votes. Any person with the greatest intentions can only do what the Board allows via votes. Therefore, I will not make potentially false promises stating that I will lower or cut taxes. I will say that I personally do not want to see an increase in taxes. The median age for citizens here are mid-forties, like myself. This age group is already overburdened with the extra expenses of teenagers, extra car insurance and college tuition. Costs continually go up with incomes stagnate. In general, many of our citizens simply cannot handle another expense. Again, what are WE going to do?
I'm a big believer in creative problem solving. I think there are a few thoughts that have not been explored that could help our current citizens with the threat of higher taxes. First, due to our lower taxes, our county is attractive to newcomers. Its the newcomers that place the strain on our infrastructure. Perhaps, those that move in from other counties and states should have an extra “newcomer tax”. Additionally, for the low-impact businesses we could offer a tax break with the understanding that they hire our citizens. The majority of workers leave the county to earn a living consequently spending their money elsewhere. Could a tax such as this bring some balance? I certainly don’t see this as anymore ludicrous than some of the other taxes paid. We want everyone to feel welcome in our county, but we must first work to sustain ourselves. Our first responsibility should be to those that are already here.
If anyone has any thoughts that may be helpful regarding this I would love to hear from them. I’m here for all of us.
Question: Considering that the housing market is beginning to go flat, what would you do to help keep property taxes low and what would you do to work toward a property tax cut?
Ronda Jones: The housing market has been going flat for years. Foreclosures are a record high for several reasons. The economy is volatile. Housing has developed through “soft money”. Variable rate mortgages have placed people in jeopardy. Stokes County has seen the least amount of property transfers since 2001. On the other hand, farmers are aging out. In turn, being bought out for development, i.e., residential development known as “sprawl”. Our property tax rate is lower than many counties around us, therefore, encouraging sprawl. This trend has brought many challenges to our county. The most obvious challenge is the strain it places on our infrastructure. This includes all administrative, social and educational services. Thus, naturally requiring more funding. So what are we to do?
The question asks what I will do about keeping property taxes low and working toward a property cut. To answer, I must first begin by reminding the citizens that I will only be one of five votes. Any person with the greatest intentions can only do what the Board allows via votes. Therefore, I will not make potentially false promises stating that I will lower or cut taxes. I will say that I personally do not want to see an increase in taxes. The median age for citizens here are mid-forties, like myself. This age group is already overburdened with the extra expenses of teenagers, extra car insurance and college tuition. Costs continually go up with incomes stagnate. In general, many of our citizens simply cannot handle another expense. Again, what are WE going to do?
I'm a big believer in creative problem solving. I think there are a few thoughts that have not been explored that could help our current citizens with the threat of higher taxes. First, due to our lower taxes, our county is attractive to newcomers. Its the newcomers that place the strain on our infrastructure. Perhaps, those that move in from other counties and states should have an extra “newcomer tax”. Additionally, for the low-impact businesses we could offer a tax break with the understanding that they hire our citizens. The majority of workers leave the county to earn a living consequently spending their money elsewhere. Could a tax such as this bring some balance? I certainly don’t see this as anymore ludicrous than some of the other taxes paid. We want everyone to feel welcome in our county, but we must first work to sustain ourselves. Our first responsibility should be to those that are already here.
If anyone has any thoughts that may be helpful regarding this I would love to hear from them. I’m here for all of us.
posted by BP News Bureau | 12:51 PM
3 Comments:
Wow! Four paragraphs of text, 439 words. Is there an answer in there?
The housing market has been going flat for years.
Untrue. The Fed spent most of 2006 and part of 2007 screwing around with interest rates to cool off this supposed housing "bubble." They seem to have succeeded, and now the housing market is going into the dumpster (and taking the low-end mortgage market with it).
Housing has developed through “soft money”.
This is a content-free sentence. I don't even know what might be meant by "soft money." Housing heated up with the introduction of Bill Clinton's Marxist "houses for everybody" program of government subsidies on mortgages and relaxation of federal regulations on mortgages for people who have no business getting mortgages. Mortgages are failing because the consumers are not good credit risks. The government skewed the market by making it profitable in the short-run for banks to loan money to people whom they would never have done so otherwise.
...residential development known as “sprawl”.
More buzzword salad. It should be made clear that sprawl only refers to the conversion of low-tax-yield, generally agricultural property into relatively higher yield residential property. In general, the term also refers to poor development practices that turn large amounts of land into housing without any supporting commercial infrastructure (e.g. King, NC).
Our property tax rate is lower than many counties around us, therefore, encouraging sprawl.
Untrue. See above. Sprawl is caused by the local government's desire to improve its tax base. Relatively lower tax rates actually discourage sprawl.
To answer, I must first begin by reminding the citizens that I will only be one of five votes.
Non-answer. The question was what would you do to work toward the goals, not how would you achieve the goals. Obviously, the question anticipated the fact that the board operates on a majority.
The median age for citizens here are mid-forties, like myself.
Pointless statistic. The only thing it illustrates is that people live longer than they used to. The average age of Stokes County's citizenry in 2000 was 55 and rising. Also, this is just a set-up for an emotional appeal to "fairness" and an attempt to identify with some particular group of voters. It is the "I feel your pain" maneuver.
Its the newcomers that place the strain on our infrastructure.
No it isn't. First of all, Stokes County's growth has, as Ronda pointed out in the very first paragraph, been slowing for the last 6 years. I suspect that if we investigated the cause of that, we would find that radical changes in regulations on manufactured housing are at its core. The strain on infrastructure is caused by the squads of mobile home dwellers who pay $100 a year in taxes, while dropping new rug rats on the school system, the health department, and social services at a rate that is probably double, maybe triple that of the families living in upscale housing.
Perhaps, those that move in from other counties and states should have an extra “newcomer tax”. Additionally, for the low-impact businesses we could offer a tax break with the understanding that they hire our citizens.
Ronda needs to read the North Carolina State Constitution as well as the general statutes covering taxation. Neither of those solutions is allowable under state law. As well, the part about tax breaks for hiring local citizens is silly and pointless. Stokes County's commercial base consists of convenience stores and fast food. I'm sure they are already hiring as many locals as they can manage.
Could a tax such as this bring some balance?
I thought I read somewhere that Ronda was registered as a Republican. Must have been a typo. Oh wait, I forgot, George Bush's new GOP loves taxes.
So, in summary, I guess there is an answer in there. Ronda's answer to the question of how she would work toward keeping taxes low and what she would do to work toward a tax cut is this: new taxes. I predict Ronda will go far in the GOP. She has learned the art of triangulation and hasn't even held office yet.
Leon Inman & Jimmy Walker have not responded to any of the questions.
Can you blame them, guys?
Can you blame them, guys?
Yes, actually. They are candidates for public office and volunteered to answer questions.
Am I surprised they won't answer? No. Neither of them is on firm enough ground to risk actually answering any questions. They both learned their lessons well from the masters of the bob-and-weave, Buster Robertson and Willis Overby.
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