28. January 2008 by Greg Kelver.

Can we say “uniform and equal” ?  The change in 2006 Assessed Value compared to 2005 Assessed Value for properties in the 500 Block of Lincolnway probably doesn’t make much sense to most folks.  Perhaps Assessor McDaniel thinks the “Ron Paul for President” signs proudly displayed in the front window will make the fair market value of a property worth a lot more than surrounding properties.

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27. January 2008 by Greg Kelver.

Our state legislators continue to demonstrate just how far out of touch they are with the Indiana voters who elected them to office.  By a 93-1 vote, they passed a property tax “relief” bill that gives gives no real relief to overburdened Hoosier taxpayers.  The 16.7% hike on sales tax coupled with the failure to maintain what little referendum based spending controls had been included in the original bill clearly demonstrate that legislators once again just chose a different taxpayer pocket to steal from.  Of 94 legislators casting a vote, apparently Rep. Craig Fry is the only one who understands the meaning of both “fraud” and “unconstitutional” http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080125/News01/801250316/1052/News01

But unlike the 93% of the legislators who merrily went along to pass this illusionary bipartisan garbage in a thinly disguised attempt cover their exposed incumbent posteriors, Rep. Fry already has  a pretty good  track record from the prior property tax bill that legislators passed to ”fix” property taxes in 2003  http://www.in.gov/legislative/hdpr/R05_12052003.html  He understood then what many LaPorte County Property Taxpayers painfully understand now - the meaning of “hoodwinked” as it pertains to property tax reform. 

For the record, Rep. Fry has also done some good work this session as co-author of HB-1242 that attempts to bring some sanity back into the corporate tax breaks (aka corporate welfare) that Indiana politicians have fondly bestowed upon well connected corporate lobbyist friends  http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_democrats/pelath_press_20080110.html

There certainly are a lot of areas where I would strongly differ from Rep. Fry’s approach, but I sincerely respect and admire a politician who has the guts and the backbone to stand his ground when he knows something is just plain wrong. Back in the good old days, I think they once called that “principled.” 

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14. January 2008 by Greg Kelver.

The LaPorte County property tax tussle continues to get more interesting by the day.  Thanks to the efforts of the Michigan City News Dispatch to obtain a copy of the deposition of Assessor Carol McDaniel and the story by reporter Laurie Wink,  http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=8633 it is probably safe to say that many LaPorte County residents are now questioning the competency and qualifications of the LaPorte County Assessor. At the property tax forum held at the Blue Chip last month, Attorney Mark Phillips made citizens aware of the deposition of Assessor McDaniel that had occurred.  As a property taxpayer, I  was pretty disgusted when I heard about some of the answers she provided during that deposition.  After 6 years on the job, I would tend to believe that Assessor McDaniel should have known every line item term on a property tax card with her eyes closed - wearing dark glasses shouldn’t have been either a problem or an excuse.

But I am a bit amused by Attorney Friedman’s recent media comments. Hopefully,  he will go ahead and “try the case in public.”  In this case, I think that “in public” is exactly where it should be tried. Personally, I have always enjoyed a good debate and as an interested taxpaying bystander, I would welcome the opportunity to watch  Mr. Phillips do his job for his client in the glare of the public spotlight.  From what I have seen, he certainly does seem to have a very good handle on the problem with property taxes in LaPorte County. And it surely would be fascinating to watch Mr. Phillips have Assessor McDaniel do a property by property assessment analysis of properties owned by all LaPorte County elected officials. 

 The deposition disclosure pretty much cuts right to the heart of the question about the qualifications of those we have elected to office.  Especially at the local level, there often is very little information available about the qualifications of people who are running for these offices.  It is even more unfortunate that once elected,  Indiana does not have any provision to recall those elected officials who we discover may lack the qualifications to do the job they were elected to do.  Citizens have little recourse to make any change between elections while significant damage can be inflicted by rogue politicians while they remain in office.

For far too long, PUNCH 10 happy LaPorte County has been electing some political hacks who may be less than qualified to do the jobs they were elected to do.  As many property taxpayers are now discovering, that can have some devastating consequences for them personally.  But if there is a silver lining to this cloud, hopefully it may be more citizens will finally recognize just how broken the current system is and new faces with new ideas will step forward and get involved to fix it.             

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