Property Taxes

Property taxes (assessments) are going up in Lincoln County, but not because of the Harrisburg School District

So this email from the super of Harrisburg was recently sent out;

—–Original Message—–

From: Notification from Harrisburg School District [mailto:Notification-Do_Not_Reply@target.brightarrow.com]

Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2016 2:01 PM

To: – – – –

Subject: This is a notification from Harrisburg School District

We are hearing that some people in Lincoln County are seeing that their real estate taxes have taken a big jump.  What we understand is that most of this is due to higher assessments on property.  The Harrisburg School has again not raised their tax levies for the 9th year in a row.  Any increases you may see are not due to an increase by the school.  Jim Holbeck

The assessments are up in Sioux Falls to. Funny how this city is swimming in money and we have all this borrowing power, of course we do, we keep increasing taxes.

If the city destroys your property and it is clearly their fault what is the recourse?

Apparently it is only small claims court;

Merri Nolz won a small claims judgment against the city four years ago.

“The judge looked at it and found some contributory negligence on her part, but it was slight,” said Paul Bengford, the assistant city attorney who handled the case.

By “slight,” Bengford means 10 percent. Nolz got $1,654.06, which was 90 percent of the money she’d asked for in repairs and car rental fees.

 

As the article continues, you will see the irony in the judgements of the city spending thousands of dollars fighting minimal claims, which got me thinking about the lawsuit in Jackson County in which the South Dakota municipal insurance COOP, Public Assurance spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending their (illegal) right to deny Native Americans a voting center that was in clear violation of Federal Law.

Or there was the denial of payment to an apartment building landlord who had their property destroyed by the SFPD SWAT team, or the flooding of Touch of Europe by a city fire hydrant.

It seems the city and Public Assurance would rather spend their money on attorney fees then actually doing the right thing and paying out claims when they are clearly negligent.

These are examples of the kind of disgusting pigs that work in the legal fields of our government, and I haven’t even mentioned our own attorney general.

Mayor’s Neighborhood Brickwalls Summit, 11/14/2015

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybApPfRnObo[/youtube]

Our intrepid mayor of Sioux Falls seems to think the US Constitution, Charter and written laws are brick walls to overcome. Listen to him discuss his quest to make over the city into his image at the Neighborhood Summit on November 14, 2015. His “to hell with the laws, Council and citizens” must be overcome if we are to have a clean and safe city for all.

The brick walls he is upset with are based on rights guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution, South Dakota Constitution and the Sioux Falls Home Rule Charter. Why does no one challenge hizzoner when he defends his administration’s lawbreaking actions?

In this Summit part 1 Mayor Mike let’s us in on his lawless vision of government by and for the specials at the expense of the rest of us.

Since the city of Sioux Falls heavily edits or blocks meetings videos we now offering a direct link to our collected city videos through www.siouxfall.org.

So we ask “Neighbors are only good if they conform to his vision?”

Why TIF financing just doesn’t add up

Today in the Argus Leader, they did a story about the Washington Square developers applying for a $4.6 million dollar TIF. They contend they deserve the TIF based on the fact that they will provide FREE public parking of 189 spaces (at night and weekends ONLY).

This is where the TIF funding does not add up. As of right now they pay about $7K a year in property taxes, after the project is completed they assume the property tax bill will be $500K per year. What they don’t tell you is when you subtract the TIF rebate value from that tax bill, the government entities will NOT be receiving these taxes until 9 years after the project is completed (around 2025-26).

We can talk tax benefits all we want, but when we don’t provide TIF’s and private investors figure out how to build these projects with their own money (remember last year we had record building permits with NO TIF’s issued), the community benefits from the property taxes immediately after the project is completed, not 8-9 years later.

Darrin Smith gets Tifilicious at the County Commission meeting

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEFiECjQCR4#t=4457[/youtube]

(starts at 20:30)

Funny how the commission gets to see this presentation before the council – or at least I can’t recall the council getting the presentation yet?

Darrin explains TIFs before the new TIF presentation. While he is correct that TIFs don’t cost taxpayers up front (even though we are footing the bill to administer them) we are losing property tax revenue for several years. Basically the developers are paying themselves property taxes and using the money to pay for the development.