OCTOBER 17 - OCTOBER 23, 1998
OCTOBER 23, 1998
Fair Market Value
Good Morning. It is 31 degrees F in Marshburg at 5:02 AM. The sky is clear and
the wind is from the west and is light.
Another day of tax assessment hearings are on the schedule. They have been
going on now for over a week and the changes being made will be for the 1999 tax year.
The news media picked up the new tax formula developed for the oil producers. (For our
readers not familiar with this area, we are the grand daddy of the oil industry and still
have producing wells, some 100 years old, and are drilling new ones all the time.) The
formula allows for a gradual depreciation of an oil well over a ten year period and gives
credit for production and capping costs.
While the state government gives away the store to attract new industry, we
decided to help a home grown struggling industry and give them the benefits that strangers
seem to get without even asking. What a revolutionary idea!
As I listen carefully to each taxpayer, I hear the
same thing. It makes no difference if the taxpayer is elderly, on a fixed income; or a
professional person earning six digits annually. Each taxpayer is interested in the impact
on their school taxes.
County taxes have remained level since we took office in 1996 in spite of
inheriting a staggering deficit and being forced to undertake a countywide reassessment.
With the exception of the City of Bradford, borough and
township taxes have also remained level. Runaway school taxes are the major
concern of everyone. That is why people are concerned about the fair market value of their
properties.
Yesterday, a man from Ohio became angry when the board refused to lower the assessment
on his camp in Westline. It carried a value of about $12,000 and sat on an acre of land.
He claimed that no one would pay that for his camp. We disagreed.
The people just before him, also from Ohio, appealed their camp's value which was set
at $38,000. Their camp was on .25 of an acre and was not as nice as his. They were located
in Lafayette Township, just as he was. We lowered their fair market value to $11,800.
Later, we would see another man from Ohio. He also had a camp in Lafayette Township.
His assessment was $36,000 and that was lowered to $25,000. A vacant piece of property,
1.2 acres in size, just down the road with 225 feet of frontage was left at the same value
of $8,500. The owner, also from Ohio, claimed he could not sell it for $6,000. He paid
$7,500 for the property in 1993. The cherry trees on the property are probably worth all
of the value we set it at.
Every fifteen minutes we have a new set of circumstances and new stories presented to
us. Every fifteen minutes we are in the position to make right what may have been done
incorrectly by the firm we hired to do the countywide reassessment. Sometimes we have to
correct mistakes. Other times, people, good people, like the man from Ohio who had driven
180 miles, leave angry feeling like we were unfair. He accused us of setting the fair
market values high so we could raise the millage and get more tax revenue. He did not want
to believe that his camp sitting on a acre of land in the forest was worth $12,000.
Taxes can drive people over the edge. Taxes caused the American Revolution. Taxes
irritate the hell out of me! I flat hate paying them!
I especially hate paying taxes when I see the incompetence and wastefulness of school
districts and bureaucracies and elected officials.
For the past two days, when I was not sitting in assessment hearings, I was signing
checks. The three commissioners sign all checks personally. We signed over $350,000 in
checks.
On September 30, 1998, I wrote to District Attorney Michele Alfieri and asked for
a full accounting of the Matis Vehicular Homicide Case. To date I have heard nothing. To
date I have been ignored. However, over eight thousand dollars ($8,000) in checks had to
be signed by the the three commissioners paying for part of the case. That was
for airfare to bring witnesses in from Arizona and for lodging in fancy bed and breakfasts
and for anything else the District Attorney felt she needed to present her case.
What she failed to have that would not have cost the taxpayers a single penny was
reasonable proof that the charges she brought were indeed factual and provable. Even
though her predecessor, Charley (The Tuna) Jeff Duke fought to keep this case on the
books, he was out of the picture. The duty was Michele Alfieri's alone to evaluate the
merits of the case and decide if it was in the best interest of the people to proceed.
Right there, Michele Alfieri failed miserably! She spent a whole lot of money
on something that could have easily been handled as so many other Driving Under the
Influence cases have been handled. Instead, the gross cost of this case for seven years
will probably cost the taxpayers $100,000 when you include the cost of time and the cost
of the appeals just to bring the case to trial. Preposterous!
The entire empire known as the McKean County Court System costs the taxpayers of the
county 91 cents of every dollar we receive in taxes. While other departments are forced
to live within a budget, the District Attorney has exceeded hers and the Judge
constantly badgers the Executive Branch of County Government for more money and more
people, new titles and more money, and new programs and more money.
He has complained that the commissioners did not allow the Commonwealth to give him a
second Judge. He refused to compromise when the commissioners asked for concessions to afford
a second Judge. A second Judge would have cost the taxpayers an additional $550,000 a
year. That is 5 more mills in taxes. Who wants to pay 5 more mills in County Taxes
just so John Cleland can be a real President Judge over someone else instead of just the
President Judge over himself? Not me!
Besides, as it was so aptly pointed out to the Judge at a recent Bar Association
Meeting when the lawyers complained about not being able to schedule civil cases and he
whined the story about the second Judge; both Richard Mutzabaugh and Harold Fink pointed
out that he had visiting Senior Judges 20 days a month. Even the lawyers are not buying
the same old song.
Everything that happens in the Court House converts directly into taxes. Everything
that happens to our schools, when we give teachers a new contract with a pay raise,
converts directly into taxes. It is unfortunate that people like John Cleland, Michele
Alfieri, our school boards, and our superintendents do not look at that. They believe that
we should pay for whatever they want. Is that fair market value? I think not!
Comment on this article editor@mlrmag.com.
OCTOBER 22, 1998
After a good night sleep...
the world seems to be at peace, especially when you wake up to the first thin
coat of snow on the back deck.
I have been fighting this cold/flu for about three weeks now. Yesterday was a bugger. I
was hot all day, fighting a low grade fever. By eleven my shirt was damp with perspiration
and I stayed being cold and warm the rest of the day. When Jim Buck found me at The
Rainbow Inn and asked for comments on the agreement between the Tax Assessment Board and
the Oil Producers, Anita even noticed that I was unusually cooperative and helpful to the
budding young reporter. "You must be sick," she said.
I was!
Right now the official temperature in Marshburg, PA is 33degrees - you know, the real
33 degrees, not that Canadian temperature which is 0 or 1 Celsius. The same 33 degrees we
grew up with - and didn't have to learn that other stuff until high school Physics.
Marshburg, the home of the Marshburg Institute of Technology (MIT), is usually a
degree or two colder than the Bradford Airport (which gives the official temperature for
Bradford, even though there are no longer certified Weather Observers there to officiate
the temperature). It is interesting to note that the Bradford Airport is in Lafayette
Township, eleven miles from Bradford, and about 1000 feet higher than the city that is
located in the Tuna Valley.
Seeing how I was once not only a certified field Weather Observer, but
also an advanced instructor at the United States Air Force Weather School,
perhaps the Marshburg Temperature is more official than the Airport Temperature. With that
in mind, I believe I will begin giving the morning temperature with each editorial, just
to keep our temperature official for one moment in the day anyway. That certainly seems
reasonable to me.
I am two hours late as I write today. Christene demanded: "Where are you?" by
e-mail. "I get up, pour my coffee, and sit down at the computer and see what you are
doing. Today you are not there. Why?"
Hey Chris! Give me a break. I was asleep. It is the first time in months I have slept
all night. Don't you think I deserve it just once, considering I have been ill? I even
poured myself a half a cup of coffee extra, after my first and usually only cup of the
day. This is a different day, no two ways about it.
Of course it is. The Yankees swept the World Series in four games. As I slept in, I
didn't get the latest on the Mideast Summit going on in Maryland, that they said was going
nowhere-and really, who the hell cares? Think about it.
Bill Clinton is trying to fix what God started! When he promised the Jews the
"land of milk and honey" he was talking about Israel/Palestine. The land that He
gave the Jews just happened to be occupied by Palestinians. Because God gave it to the
Jews, they felt they were justified in running out, or killing the people who where living
there. I have always wondered if that was what God really had in mind when he led the Jews
to the Promised Land? I know that Bill Clinton, is above most laws (he would have us
believe that, anyway); but I do not believe that even he can change God's grand design in
this deal, whatever that might be.
I know that when I went to bed the Jews were threatening to leave the Summit. At least
they didn't threaten to attack. I see that as a breakthrough. Considering that the
Palestinians have a plan to eliminate the Jewish state of Israel, I wonder why
they are there in the first place. Maybe it might just have something to do with the 50
Billion in aid we give them every year. Oh well, you know what they say, "What God
has put together, let no man put asunder."
I will be surprised if they left.
Anyway, I still have the cobwebs from sleeping longer than is normal for me. I will be
hours behind myself all day. World events seldom make an impact on Marshburg and MIT will
be holding instructional classes as usual.
Comment on this alleged article editor@mlrmag.com.
OCTOBER 21, 1998
It's the same old song - more money
Don't be fooled when the McKean County Solid Waste Authority wants to refinance
an old bond issue.
Don't be fooled when they say they are saving money. The savings will be a savings in
not making the scheduled bond payment due in January, 1999. That payment is approximately
$500,000.
Last summer the Solid Waste Authority guaranteed the people of McKean County that they
needed no new money to continue operations at the Ness Landfill. On Monday, Lowell Ayers,
the manager of the landfill, the same person claiming that no new money was needed made
the "pitch for savings" still claiming that no new money was going to be
involved.
I called it "playing games with money."
That is exactly what it is. On the surface it appears that there is no new money. The
same amount is refinanced in a new bond issue. The term of the issue remains the same, or
so it seems. The bond will be scheduled to be paid off on the same date. The only
difference is the savings in interest is never passed on to us. The savings in interest is
taken out of the schedule of payments and used for operating capital, something the
Authority said they did not have to do.
In other words, our obligation has not decreased on the schedule the Authority
has promised us. They will have refinanced their debt. They will have used the scheduled
payment to keep the doors open. Furthermore, they will have failed to reduce the
obligation the taxpayers are guaranteeing in the event of a certain future default.
We should all keep in mind that they have already defaulted on an
obligation in 1987. The county had to bail them out and the Authority still owes the
county money for that bail out. These people cannot be trusted! They will burn the
taxpayers as sure as the sun will come up today.
If that does happen, the taxpayers have no recourse against any of the members of the
Solid Waste Authority. They are immune for their mistakes or misdeeds. We as taxpayers
have guaranteed the debt of the Authority and we are in line to pay off if they do not.
That means an additional tax included in your county taxes to pay off the
$15,000,000 still owed by the Authority, or whatever is remaining at the time of
default. Think about it. Do you want to have County Taxes that would rival your
school taxes? I don't! If we get stuck with their bad debts that is exactly what will
happen.
More money for the Solid Waste Authority means higher taxes at some point in
time!
We are one of only two counties that still own their own landfill. What do 65 other
counties in Pennsylvania know that we don't? Are they missing the boat or are we? Who is
stupid, them, or us?
Answer those questions for yourself. You be the judge on that one. You all know how I
feel on the issue. All I know is we are guaranteeing a Garbage Dump. Call it a
landfill, it is still a Garbage Dump! It is stinky and it is smelly. It
smells with the garbage we send to it at higher prices than any of our neighbors pay. It
smells with poor financial management by people who don't have a clue on proper money
management. It smells from a history of mismanagement with five million dollars wasted on
studies to build a leachate treatment plant that still isn't fully operational and 100%
effective.
Mark my words! If we keep this Albatross we will live to regret it. Comment on this
article: editor@mlrmag.com.
OCTOBER 20, 1998
Morning Talk Radio
I wake up earlier than most people. My mind keeps me working on projects even after I
've fallen asleep. Not much rest in that - you can believe me if you haven't experienced
it. Anyway, I'll get up and catch the news in the middle of the night. By doing that, I
have no real need to listen again once the day comes. Morning talk radio fills the gap.
Locally (in the Bradford, PA area and just barely receivable in Marshburg) I listen to
1490 WESB-AM with Tony and Bob In the Morning.
For a city of just over 10,000 people (counting the prison population at FCI McKean
which is really in Lafayette Township) these two guys do a good job. I listen to them
during my half hour drive to Smethport everyday and while I am staying alert for deer
running out in front of me, they are good for a laugh or two.
I grew up on morning talk radio shows. KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh back in the fifties had
Rege Cordic. He would later turn actor and go to Hollywood, but he was on the top when he
was broadcasting every morning with his variety of characters like Omicron, the visiting
space gremlin. My mother and I used to listen as I ate breakfast and got ready to catch
the bus to take me to school. Many a cold morning was warmed with laughter over the antics
of a man who was no doubt way before his time. Today he would be nationally syndicated and
sent to stations by satellite world wide.
His humor was good humor. It was the kind that a boy could listen to and not have to
ask his mother what he really meant. There was none of the garbage that comes out of the
sewer mouths based in the national studios in New York. It was clean and it was funny. No
one got hurt.
Today in Pittsburgh there is Jim Quinn on 97 WRRK-FM. He is a conservative who has
solid talk, no music, until 9AM. I can pick him up on the internet through his web site www.warroom.com. He has a great show and being from
Pittsburgh originally, I can identify with the areas and the local subjects he covers. He
is excellent and offers a bit of the extreme right view without actually falling off the
table into the abyss of extremism. Jim Quinn is overall good listening.
Tony and Bob have only one draw back. They sound alike. You really have to listen close
to decide who is really talking. Tony, the Bills fan, has the faint twang of the
Buffalo area on certain words. Bob, the Steelers fan, has a bit of the Pittsburgh nasal
tone and uses funny twists of words as Pittsburghers, or people who have relatives from
Pittsburgh, are apt to do. They both laugh alike and have been together so long, they
actually do sound alike.
If they were on television, you would have no problem telling them apart. Tony would be
the one with all the hair. On the radio, unless you have trained your ear, you will have
trouble.
They frequently call Bob's Grandma Hand down in the Pittsburgh area. Now that is one
fine lady. She roots for the same teams as I do and she hangs in there with the Steelers,
no matter what, just like me. Listening to Grandma Hand talk to "the boys"
as she calls them, makes me want to call my mother. She has that home town wisdom that is
missing and that spunk to face the day that has just begun. We have gone through illness
and various flu bugs and colds with Grandma Hand over the past few years, but like the
pink bunny on TV, she seems to keep going and going and going.
Yesterday they had a guest from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. She is on the
campus security force and was plugging the upcoming event they are aiming at the students
regarding alcohol use and the effects it can have on you immediately and permanently. In
conjunction with the Pennsylvania State Police, they are staging a mock accident with an
underage girl at the wheel who was drinking an happens to have a passenger die.
The concept is excellent. They will have a panel of six who will have a drink every
twenty minutes and will then be subjected to various sobriety tests. (I volunteered to be
on the panel but they wanted students, not old birds like me.) That will demonstrate to
the students the actual deterioration of the body and the response time when they are
drinking.
There will also be a mock trial. To prosecute the case Pitt is calling on its two time
Knitting School Graduate and McKean County District Attorney, Michele Alfieri. That was
the only part I questioned. I would have hoped that they would have found some one with a
better conviction record. Even with all the evidence stacked against the unfortunate girl
who was in the accident, with Michele trying the case, the girl stands a chance of beating
the rap.
At the very least she might have to beg off and ask the Attorney General to appoint
Special Council because of any of a number of conflict of interests - like perhaps:
"My husband, Tony, is the solicitor for the Solid Waste Authority and Pitt's
garbage is dumped at the landfill." As I see it, that is the only flaw in the
program. If anyone at Pitt is reading today, call Joe Massa in Warren County. He can team
up with his old buddy, John Herzog, round up Michael Brown, and Brown will testify under
oath to anything they want him to say. You will win for sure then.
Morning Talk Radio is wonderful. It is interesting. It is informative, and it is fun.
Tune in today during your drive to work. You listen to music most of the day. Listen to "the
boys in the morning" today. If you really feel brave, maybe you'll pick up Rush
in the afternoon.
Comment on this article editor@mlrmag.com.
OCTOBER 19, 1998
Fall Weekends
This was the weekend the leaves fell. Last week it was perfect to see the leaves, this
was the one you begin to rake the leaves.
My buddy Mike at the local Sears outlet sold me a tractor with the mulching attachment
for cutting the grass last spring. It not only does a great job cutting an mulching the
grass, it also chews up the leaves into little bits that are perfect for the lawn. I spent
my Friday afternoon after work doing that.
While the lawn looked great, for Friday at least, by Saturday noon it was already being
covered by the leaves that were falling like rain in a warm fall breeze. By that time I
had moved on to other projects. This is the time I usually begin building and making
repairs for the winter.
Three Sundays ago about 5 PM the National Weather Service spotted a funnel cloud on
radar in the Marshburg area. We were watching football when the rains came. Out of nowhere
the trees bent over and the rain came sideways beating against the windows and the house.
It drove the rain into the house through open windows even though they were protected by a
twelve foot covered porch. As fast as it was here, it was gone. In its wake the tops of
three trees were taken off and thrown a hundred feet away. We lost the peak of our
porch roof. It was this single piece of storm related damage that set off my latest
project. This is where it get interesting so work with me on this. Even my wife has
trouble with this logic.
I had long talked about replacing the single section of the original deck on the back
of the house. I had also noted that what was once a deck that I enclosed and made part of
our dining room was slowly sinking under the weight. (It was supported by posts in the
ground.) Seeing how the room and the remaining deck were connected by a common base, other
measures were necessary.
I sank two 6x6 inch 16 foot long poles into the ground next to the sinking addition. I
dug the holes 48 inches deep using a bar and post hole diggers. Then my son, Geoff, and I
carried the poles that weigh between 10 to 15 pounds a foot to the holes and then
upright them. We used two bags of premixed concrete and then filled the holes with dirt
after leveling them. Then I took blocks out of the foundation and put two 2x8 treated 12
foot pieces of lumber from the foundation to the poles and using a jack, leveled the room
and giving it the support it needed all along.
Now what does leveling the little addition have to do with the damaged roof? I have
also wanted an over hang over the porch so when it rains the water does not come in the
back door as it comes off the roof. Also in winter, the snow will stay away and we
won"t have ice from the dogs walking in and out. That means I have to extend the
roofline out about six feet. Using the two poles for support purposes, I can also
establish a new roofline. That will take me to the damaged part of the porch roof and I
will do them at once.
However, it is not as easy as all that with me. I tore out the old porch and put in the
new porch so I would have a new base from which to work as I go up and down the ladder. I
realize that the two poles alone were giving the house an unbalanced look so I sank two
more twelve feet away. As it stands right now we will either have a covered porch on the
side of the house, or we will have a new dining room (which is what I really want).
I did and started that this weekend.
In the meantime on Sunday I took several hours out from 1-3 PM to help open the new
Bradford Area Senior Center. It was well attended by the members (my Aunt Rose belongs)
and the usual array of elected officials were there to give speeches. I spoke on behalf of
the County Commissioners. Following Senator Slocum who proudly took the credit for getting
the funds for the seniors and named Senator Arlen Spector for pushing the paperwork
through, my message was brief.
I told the seniors who daily attend functions and receive a hot noon day meal at the
center that no politician has the right to take credit for making the new Senior
Center a reality. They deserve the credit and they alone. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
would not have allocated the funds if they had not come in the numbers that they have and
given the support that they have. If politicians did anything to make it a reality,
then they were doing their jobs. The real credit belongs to the seniors because now they
own their own center, not rent it, and it will be a reality long after we all are gone.
I watched the Yankees win the first game of the series and by Sunday night I was beat.
By the way, the lawn is covered with move leaves and I will be back on the tractor next
Friday, weather permitting. This is a great time of year. It's my favorite time. It is
good to be outside doing things.
OCTOBER 17 - 18, 1998
There were no new articles.
If you have a comment on this article please click here.
[ Top ] [ Home ]
[_private/toc_for_second_level_pages.html]
