The Grays River Grange will be using this website to keep track of what we're all up to. You can expect to find minutes, reports from officers and committee chairpersons, announcements of meetings and events, and who knows what else!
Thanks for visiting. Please bookmark our site and come back soon to see what's new.
Welcome to the Grays River Grange Blog. This is a great resource for West Enders and all people in our county.
I look forward to a great year as Master of this Grange.
Thank you Doug and Beth Sheresh for setting up this web site.
Krist Novoselic
Posted by: Krist Novoselic | January 30, 2006 at 05:26 PM
Capitol Watch: Property tax pain
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
Most of us would celebrate news that one of our financial assets had increased in value substantially -- even dramatically -- unless, that is, the asset is our home and we're not ready to sell. That's because we're taxed on that increased value, despite the fact that it's a value we won't realize until and unless we sell it.
That is at the heart of the seemingly perennial property tax controversy. Despite laws capping how much local property tax levies can grow without public approval, homeowners in some areas see their assessed values going up and up. So they're paying higher and higher taxes, although the relative value of the property to them has not increased, and neither has their ability to pay those taxes.
The real solution is tax reform, dramatically scaling back property tax and sales tax rates and eliminating the job-stifling business and occupation tax, in exchange for a fair and progressive state income tax. But that's anathema to lawmakers in Olympia. So the parade of gimmicks, gambits and tax-shift proposals continues.
The latest is a proposed constitutional amendment. House Joint Resolution 4214 would allow a property's assessed value to increase by no more than 1 percent a year, unless the property is sold, at which time the assessed value would be reset to that market value.
It would be a sweet deal for longtime residents, putting an artificial cap on their tax exposure but allowing them to reap the increase in real market value when they sell. It would also shift the tax burden unfairly to newcomers and new businesses.
One result would be neighbors living in homes that are worth roughly the same amount paying markedly different amounts of property tax. Where's the fairness in that?
The cure for the pain of property taxes is to reform the entire, fundamentally unfair taxing system in this state.
It would be a mistake for the Legislature to deliver the two-thirds' majority necessary to put this ill-advised amendment to the people.
Posted by: Krist Novoselic | February 03, 2006 at 05:23 PM
All kids who attended Mayfield Grange camp are now officially members of Junior Grange. We Have bragging right on four of them. Two Grandchildren and two nieces. My husband and I were very impressed to see all these up and coming Grangers conduct such an orderly meeting.
Posted by: Sulema Zerr | August 09, 2006 at 02:04 AM