By Steve Huntsman
Via Weber Sentinel News
Friday, 01 September 2006
Don’t skip breakfast before you open your new property tax notice. If you live in Weber County you’re about to have your heart skip a beat when you see the increases. Then say to yourself, “This is OK, I voted for these people and bonds. Didn’t I support the school bond increase? And didn’t I vote for the new consolidated 911 dispatch last year?”
As you unsteadily gather yourself off the floor you might say; “But wait a minute. The mayor I voted for said he was a conservative who would hold the budget. I was told the school bond tax, for the most part, was to remain constant because of older bonds simultaneously expiring. I was told my local city municipal tax was supposed to go down as a county-wide consolidated 911 dispatch tax went up.”
Well, guess what? We, the good citizens of Weber County, have just traded another pound of flesh, when no pound was to be taken, for services we already had. If our governing bodies believe we, the people, have less than a four-week-old memory, and like a wayward child, a good cuff will send us back into line and back into the voting trough, then I have news for them.
Please understand, they might be dealing with objective thinkers in Weber County who ‘do not agree’ with the deception. King George III once said about the colonizers in America, “A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me.” To this I cry, well then call me a traitor, and let’s make the most of it, because I, for one, ‘do not agree’ with my new property tax notice.
Most Weber County citizens now see our local legislators have caught the same disease as the ones we keep sending back to Washington. The symptoms of this contagious disease are rather easy to spot including: acting like a charitable king in order to maintain office; and accomplishing a goal by spending the public treasury, regardless of any budget or constraint, while duplicitously informing the people that ‘in truth’ they are lowering our taxes.
When our local legislators act this way with the public funds, they mirror the acts of a monarchal king in his stewardship. The legislator ruler knows that like King Louis XVI of France, if he does not please the mob, then he might get an all expense paid trip to Madame Guillotine in the next election.
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace,”-Samuel Adams
I’m upset at what has happened this year with our property taxes. I refer to the situation we are in as ‘taxation with false representation’ for two reasons.
First, the local school board asked us to vote to for a $95.3 million dollar school bond – nothing wrong with that, except they snuck the new tax through during a primary election – mainly a Republican primary – with a perceived low voter turnout.
Out of the 210,000 people who live in Weber County, only 6,000 (or less than 3 percent) of the entire county voted. In reality, all it took during this primary election to approve this bond was for about 1 percent of the population, or for simply all the local school teachers and their spouses to take five minutes out of their three month summer vacations and go to the voting trough. Now 210,000 residents now have higher taxes.
Second, we were sold in the newspapers that the multiple 911 dispatch centers would combine into one central dispatch center.
We were sold that voter approval would reduce the total tax burden. If we approved the new 911 center tax, the municipalities would further reduce their tax burden and we would all save money. Instead, in North Ogden and in several of the communities, the city tax level this year did the opposite — it increased.
When questioned about this, North Ogden Finance Director Debbie Cardenas openly admits, “Sure we reduced the tax for the 911 center, but we needed more funds for other things, so we were forced to increase our portion.”
I live in North Ogden and the new 911 tax on my home went from $0 to $88, while the city tax portion went from $667 to $722. As you can see, in reality there was no decrease here, only a total tax increase. The 911 tax was added as other city taxes increased.
Residents across the county are upset by this type of financial mismanagement being carried out by governing bodies. How long will we continue to believe the stories we are told when we vote?
I understand that my city utility bill is also now increasing from near $70 a month to $90 a month, but I’m receiving no new services. The facts are that the county is giving the cities more money this year than last. The cities are also receiving new tax windfalls as a direct result of the increased revenues on electricity and natural gas costs. Now some of our cities are even raising their portion of the property tax on top of the county certified rates.
Fortunately for you, the reader, these tax issues are political ones. But they do require your action in order change future outcomes. Tricking the public into raising these taxes, while telling us they were not raised, reminds me of the Chinese proverb. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
When a local legislator (a mayor, city council member or school board) acts like a king and degenerates by deception, partially for the sake of maintaining their power, and they do this by opening the public treasury, then methinks it’s time for them to forfeit their rights of leadership. Thank goodness we still can vote and have long-term memories in Weber County.
Steve Huntsman is a member of the Weber Sentinel News editorial board, serves a city councilman for the City of North Ogden and is an occasional contributor to Weber County Forum.
