Population growth

I hope that the tremendous turnout for the assessors briefing on Thursday was proof enough that population growth in the county is very expensive for taxpayers. As our population increases their demands on infrastructure provided by the county and state increase. The tax assessor simply sees that property owners share equitably in the cost that the County and State will have in supporting the increased demands for that infrastructure. We are somewhat fortunate as many people own vacation homes and do not greatly impact our infrastructure. However, on the mainland, it has been calculated that, on average, every new home costs that community in excess of $30,000. So it takes a good many years to recover that amount in taxes unless you have $30,000 in impact fees.

November 3, 2008 9:05 pm

I hope that the tremendous turnout for the assessors briefing on Thursday was proof enough that population growth in the county is very expensive for taxpayers. As our population increases their demands on infrastructure provided by the county and state increase. The tax assessor simply sees that property owners share equitably in the cost that the County and State will have in supporting the increased demands for that infrastructure. We are somewhat fortunate as many people own vacation homes and do not greatly impact our infrastructure. However, on the mainland, it has been calculated that, on average, every new home costs that community in excess of $30,000. So it takes a good many years to recover that amount in taxes unless you have $30,000 in impact fees.

Besides the tax assessor there are special taxing districts – like schools, library, airport, the cemetery and the fire district. Your tax bill includes the levies that were voted for in your district. Hopefully this is a wake up call for all of us that willingly support levies but don’t take the time to see what the commissioners of those districts are up to. In many cases their perception of the service that they think you demand create costs far beyond the actual needs of the community.

If you want to mitigate growth then you will mitigate taxes. In fact we now have a perfect opportunity to do this. If we refuse to implement the San Juan County Storm Water Utility Proposal (which no one in the county knows what valuable resource this plan is suppose to protect) the county advises that the state will restrict our growth (see paragraph 2 of that proposal). How fortunate. If we don’t implement the Storm Water Proposal we won’t get hit with a hefty annual levy and we stop the spiraling cost of growth and the taxes that it causes. Common sense and simple to do.

As you know this is a democracy and anger and fuming won’t solve the problem. You have to get active and let your thoughts be heard by those that you have elected. I wish you well in that effort.

Walter Corbin

Olga