Desktop Dynamo

We must remember where we came from... and where we are going!

I know I promised no more reassessment stories...but this post is...ummm...interesting.

I wrote a letter to the editor recently and sent it to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. They printed it yesterday.

Since my mother-in-law's stroke back in April, I've become extremely aware of the vulnerability of some of our seniors. The gist of my letter was that seniors need to be protected during the current Luzerne County reassessment. At no point in my letter do I say that it's fine by me if anyone else loses their property. I focused strictly on the seniors, as I think they are especially vulnerable to a dramatic rise in property taxes.

So far I got one comment at the Times Leader site (feel free to leave your own feedback there...defend or bar-b-que me as you see fit):

"...All non-seniors can pay higher taxes or lose their homes, as long as the senior citizens are treated fairly, it's OK! Brillant!! Spoken like a true, lifelong, go into the voting booth and pull the big "D" lever, mindless democrat. You are the reason we have the three buffoons running the county and foisting this reassessment debacle on us all. We ALL deserve to be treated fairly, regardless of age." - SB

Lifelong, go into the voting booth and pull the big "D" lever, mindless Democrat?? Me??

Umm....I think the last Democrat I voted for was my Dad, Walter, when the local Harding Democrats strong-armed me for my vote many decades ago.

But I'm not sure if I actually pulled the lever for Wally. I might have voted Republican out of sheer spite if I was aggravated with him at the time. (Pretty much a 50-50 crapshoot there, as I was around 20. Dad and I were at loggerheads constantly back then!)

Well, I do agree with the last line SB wrote. We all deserve fair treatment. But I wrote the letter to bring seniors to the front burner. I consider them the most vulnerable. The tripwire for me was when I read an account of a local woman in her 80's facing higher property taxes who said: "...just take us out and shoot us." That has stayed with me every single day since I read it.

No, SB...I don't want anyone losing their homes. Not you. Not me. And certainly not your Grammy, who, by the way, just chucked that scarf she was knitting you for Christmas in the garbage.

Health Care: No health care for anyone. Zip. Nada. As people croak, more wings for me.

2nd Amendment: Ban guns, but give everyone bullets and a slingshot. Just watch they don't put out an eye.

Illegal Immigration: Let everyone in, but they have to live in Jersey. That'll teach'em.

War on Terror: Freeze falafel inventories worldwide until Osama is turned in. That'll happen sometime around Thursday next week.

Abortion: All current members of Congress should be retroactively aborted immediately, or forced to move to Jersey. That'll teach'em.

Hail to the Chief??

5) The bank calls and asks you not to write any checks until Friday...their electric bill is due!

4) When you make a $20 deposit...the bank President waxes your car!

3) You get an outdated can of Spam when you open a new checking account!

2) They don't get armored car deliveries any more...Tony Soprano drops their money off in a paper bag!

1) They cash your paycheck with Monopoly Money!

Yes, there were a handful of folks that responded strongly to my personal wrangling with my County's recent reassessment. (There were offers to bring marshmallows, gasoline, matches, etc. to a burning of these documents.)

But the bottom line is few folks wanted to read about it, and the hit counter has barely nudged. Meantime, hits on all the fiction keep going up.

I've said my piece on my County's reassessment; at this site I'm done. I have other avenues to address this.

I promise to post more of my usual insanity shortly. I apologize. I'm flogging myself with a burnt chicken wing as I write this. I didn't even take the bone out first.

Ouch! Ouch!

(I should have used a wing doused with sweet and sour sauce...it doesn't burn as much when I break the skin).

**NOTE** I've calmed down a wee bit since the original post below. I will update this post later this weekend after reviewing the online data of my reassessment. One correction, after reviewing my pre-construction appraisal, is that the finished basement was NOT included in the original pre-construction valuation of the house. It should also be noted that Commissioner Steve Urban has been quick to respond to my direct e-mails to him concerning reassessment. As evidenced in published newspaper reports, he has also been very responsive to taxpayers with reassessment questions. Hats off to him.

It turns out my reassessment was mailed out on July 1. It arrived yesterday, and I found it lying there in front of the PC waiting for me when I got in from another brutal day at the office.

Apparently, parts of Plains Township went out in the July 1 batch (my mother-in-law's also came yesterday).

When we built our new house, we were told our new taxes would be determined after the reassessment. Our mortgage documents estimated our county and school taxes at around $1800. This was based on a house that was supposed to have a garage, finished basement and a sound foundation. It has none of these.

For the past couple years, we've been paying about a third of the above amount. I fully expected my taxes to go up after reassessment (and rightfully so) but hoped they would come in no higher than $2000. I would have been ecstatic with the $1800 originally forecast, but suspected I wouldn't get that lucky.

The poop: My estimated tax impact total tax after reassessment is $3269. That's within spitting distance of doubled taxes on a house that simply isn't what it was supposed to be.

The real "bottom line" as far as my empty wallet is concerned is this: Our total tax has jumped from $619 to $3269...more than 5 times what we've been paying. Obviously, the $619 was far too low...but we've jumped from one extreme to the other. Unlike the few years we paid low, which we knew was a temporary situation, the new amount might be permanent.

Again, I knew my assessed value would rise significantly. But there is an 81% difference between the estimated tax of 2005...based on a house completed as planned...and what my reassessment came in at. How can there be such a wide divergence?

Well, for one thing...Luzerne County was reassessed based on 2005 data at the top of a housing bubble that has since burst.

Normally, I try to find something funny or clever to say about stuff like this, but I'm at a loss. I am having a hard time making payments on the mortgage now, and that check includes escrow payments for, among other things, the $1800 in tax which was originally estimated. I expect my escrow payments to jump by $125 a month next year to cover the increase.

In the meantime, just like everyone else, my real buying power is being eaten alive by inflation and higher fuel costs. This further tightens our household income, which has already fallen by a double-digit percentage. It's look for a 2nd and possibly 3rd job time. Neat trick, in an area where unemployment is now at 6%.

Sorry folks...there's just nothing funny in any of this...and I have a feeling that I am not alone in feeling the "sticker shock."

My Luzerne County re-assessment was mailed out yesterday. I can't wait to get home from work today to see if Mr. Postman brought me my new tax burden!

I'm not worried in the least. Nope. Zippo. Not a bit.

I'm sure, based on all I've read and seen of the wondrous machinations of Luzerne County Gubbermint, it will be a completely fair and realistic assessment.

(JimboNote: No sign of my official assessment on Thursday. I'll just stay here on the edge of my seat, gnawing chicken wings and trying not to hyperventilate, until it hits the mailbox.)

(JimboNote #2: As of Monday, June 16...still nuthin! These must have been mailed by way of the Northwest Passage. My new assessment better get here quick...I'm just about out of wings.)

(JimboNote #3: As of Friday, June 27...no sign of my reassessment. My online data, which says it was last updated on February 22, 2008, still shows data from the house that was torn down in 2004. After we built the new house and moved in during the summer of 2005, we were told by the local tax collector that the county was being reassessed and we would get our new values then. Next came the delay in reassessment. Now here we are, 2008, and I'm seeing online values from a house that no longer exists. My wife is going to tear through every bit of mail that came in since the assessments were mailed out to make sure we didn't miss it somehow. Stay tuned...this is bound to get a heck of a lot more interesting.)

...This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.

Here's my own question...

This post had its roots in an e-mail I got last week from Bridget, someone I've known since we were both teens. In a nutshell, she asked: "What's with all the @#$%^ dead wives in your fiction?"

She'd noticed a trend...there's a widower in No Cognitive Defect, and another in Water's Edge.

I told her she'd forgotten the widower in Tears of Saint Lawrence.

I decided to see how many other bodies I could unearth. It ain't pretty kids. Here we go:

Falling in Love with Loredana (work in progress): 1 widow
July 27: 1 widower
The Eternal Mayor: 1 widower
No Cognitive Defect: 1 widower
The Tears of Saint Lawrence: 1 widower
Joseph Plum and the Panic of 2000 (in re-write): 1 widower
Water's Edge: 1 widower

Dead wives: 6
Dead husbands: 1

It's not over...a new piece with a working title of From the Sky originally had no dead spouses. But hell, I'm on a roll. I'm throwing in a pair of dead wives. Maybe a husband or two as well.

Go for the gusto, that's what I say.

I try not to get too political on this site, and try to keep it tongue-in-cheek when I do. I am plenty active politically, and I have other forums to express my personal political views.

In this case, I am making an exception because of yet another attack on our rights here in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

Within the past year, residents of my county learned that there are two types of citizens here: Property owners and unwashed peasants. You just may have a voice against county government if you own property in my county. If you don't...well, in these parts, yer outta luck pal.

Today, I've learned of another attack on our rights. It is an assault underway in many cities and towns across our nation...possibly even yours: Using fees and other economic weapons to muzzle free speech.

Here's what has my shorts in a bunch:

Another washout from the Ralph Kramden Bus Driving School ...