Assessment doesn’t add up
A notice I received stated, “The Tax Equalization Project will help the County to institute a ‘Fair and Equal’ assessment system for all of its taxpayers”. After studying the new assessed value of my land and the value of land in the same area, even some land that had been subdivided from a 5-acre plot, the values varied from less than $5,000 an acre to more than $86,000 an acre.
My mother owned land in Dunbar Township, on a hillside, three lots, each one .27 acre. The middle lot has a house on it.
The empty lots on each side of the house are assessed at $1,400 and the lot with the house is assessed at $14,000. No, that does not include the house.
These figures are from Fayette County Public Access – www.fayetteproperty.org. I filed an appeal and at the hearing showed the board the figures and Mr. Dorazio said, “Somebody made a mistake.” When I asked if someone was going to correct it the reply was “No, we are not going to change that.”
I knew I could appeal to the Court of Common Pleas so I went to the courthouse to find out how to do this. Without hiring a lawyer – forget it.
These are fair and equal assessment? How can the chief assessor or the county commissioners explain these differences in land values?
Bill Clements
Uniontown
Iraq isn’t the enemy
As a spouse and parent of military veterans I am angered by saber-rattling hawks who evaded military duty, but want war. President Bush evaded possible service in Vietnam by joining the Air National Guard. Bush hawks probably had similar excuses to avoid military duty, and it won’t be their sons and daughters getting killed.
After 9/11 one would think if the U.S. were to go to war it would be against the nations who produced the hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, the country responsible for letting young women burn to death in a dorm because they weren’t wearing proper clothing.
Additionally, billions of Saudi money has poured in to the U.S. to spread an anti-American brand of Islamic fundamentalism against Christians and Jews and also controls 20 percent of mosques in America.
The Saudi media is controlled by religious nutcases who teach anti-American hate. But the Saudis don’t fear war because they supply the gas for America’s SUVs. Instead, war is being planned against Iraq which is not known to harbor any Al Qaeda terrorists and did nothing to provoke the U.S. Nonetheless, Bush hawks are justifying a war with Iraq as a pre-emptive strike – a position that is morally corrupt.
If U.S. citizens followed the government’s example one could kill in self-defense because one thought a person was out to kill them. A woman in a Burka could be harboring a bomb under all that cloth and be fair game. Few could be tried for murder because they acted “pre-emptively.”
Currently those who kill a person they suspect harbors hate toward them are usually found to be paranoid schizophrenics. With the arrogance, hypocrisy and stupidity of Bush hawks no wonder nations want to build nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Who with a fair sense of justice wouldn’t blame them?
A justified war is going on in Afghanistan in which the U.S. allowed thousands of Al Qaeda to escape. And after a year, Osama bin Laden is still at large. A war with Iraq probably wouldn’t be any different, and will make us even more vulnerable with stretched resources while the hunt for Al Qaeda goes on in several countries, as well as our own.
Chris Niebrzydowski
Pittsburgh