Friday, August 1, 2008

Pete Liakakis will raise property taxes

Pete Liakakis will raise your taxes. It's a guarantee you will be writing larger property tax checks next year and the year after. Pete loves to say he never voted to raise your taxes but he has and will do it again. In 2005 Pete cast the deciding vote to raise the county millage rate. So much for saying Pete has never raised taxes.

Now that the genie is out of the bottle, the 09, 010 and 011 county budgets will fall well short of need and ol Pete will again be the deciding vote and raise your taxes again, and again. You will hear all about how bad the economy is, how sales tax revenue continues to come in under projections. Expect some sophomoric comment like, "We didn't want to do this, but we have no choice."

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. The commission has the option to institute impact fees on new construction. Fees that would be paid by people who are moving to Chatham from somewhere else. Considering who is supporting Pete, builders and developers, there is zero chance to avoid a tax increase to existing citizens because Pete will not bite the hand that feeds him and keeps him in power. No it's not the voters, it's the kingmakers who want to avoid better public policy like impact fees on new construction. Without impact fees, the builder gets to sell his or her product at market price while everywhere all around Chatham County new construction sells with impact fees as part of the sales price. Can you say, "cha-ching."

Impact fees will generate between 30-35 million dollars a year, all paid by those who want to take up residence in Chatham County. Why that's enough to actually reduce our millage rate and give everyone a nice size tax reduction. Why haven't we done this sooner? Ask the chairman.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW

This sounds good. We have been told you are a Democrat, but you sound like a Republican.

When elected are there four commissioners that will vote you? Please name them. Also please name a few local elected officials that are suporting you.

I hope you will be havng a fund raiser soon. Good luck with your campaign.

Anonymous said...

anon

I am a republican though there are democrats who I will support because they make better sense on public policy issues than their opponent.

About increasing property taxes, Stone, Gellatly (gang of 5 member), Farrell, and Kicklighter (gang of 5 member) should all vote against a tax increase, as will I so that makes 5.

About local endorsements, it is very difficult to cut across the grain as I do in pursuing better public policy as it does put people in between a rock and a hard spot. Thus, I never look to or anticipate endorsements. To my knowledge, endorsements have never won an election.

About a fundraiser, I have my own money and that means I can't be bought or pressured to skew public policy one way or another.

Thank you for your words of encouragement.

John McMasters

Anonymous said...

How could impact fees raise between "30-35 million dollars per year"? From what I hear, there are only 400-500 homes built in unincorporated Chatham per year and that number is declining rapidly. This would mean we would have to charge at least $75,000 per house. How is that going to work?