Commission Impossible

I love number 4.

I have been reading a book I was given a few years ago, "John Adams" by David McCullough. It's a great book, almost as good as the children's book I picked up about Paul Revere.

Wow, times have changed since we made such a fuss to be free from the British. It's funny the little things that pissed us off badly enough to kill perfectly nice people back then are just facts of life today. We sure take a lot more crap from the US government than we were willing to put up with from the king.

Like property taxes. In a conversation Adams recorded among some working men at a roadside pub, a man is asked what he would do if an assessor came to take note of his farm stock so he could be taxed per head. He says, "I'd knock his head off."

Back in '76, some people accused the king of treating Americans like his bastard children. Well that is the role of working class people in Chico. We are the mayor's bastards, and we get the turn of his butt cheek to our problems. Wages have not increased in this town, while soaring home prices have increased every other living expense.

Property taxes are already causing working people to forfeit their homes and predictions for Chico are, it's going to get worse. Here's why - the taxes on a $500,000 house are $5000 a year, that's what, almost $500 a month added to your mortgage payment? And then there's that 2 percent incremental increase - that really shows once the value of your house is over $300,000. And insurance is based on the assessed value of your home, we found that out. A first time homebuyer in this town is a sheep led to slaughter.

I sat at a Finance Committee meeting earlier this year and listened to Andy Hokum and Scott Grundull talk about making the city's first time home buyer's program into a revenue source. They say that if a person uses a city loan to buy a house, then sells it later for a profit, they should have to cut the city in on the profit. I asked them how many mortgage companies would get away with a scam like that, and they voted to continue the discussion at a future meeting.

I love it - a city putting the screws to it's working class residents while developers' fees in Chico are the lowest in the state. I sat at another committee meeting and heard Wayne from CalTrans tell us that developers in San Jose pay $15,000 a unit (and I think he said, that's just the road improvement fees) while Chico developers pay around $2000 a unit. Ask yourself, are houses in Chico really that much cheaper than San Jose? There's houses going in down my street for over $700,000.

Every year I resolve to quit caring about this stuff, but every trip to the grocery store or session paying taxes brings me screaming back to reality.

This year,I'm trying something different -- I'm going to make some resolutions I'll be able to keep! I'm resolving to do more complaining and cursing, not to mention a lot more mudslinging.

Warning to Dave Little: fire in the hole.

It's been great of you to run my blob on your blog Lon. Happy New Year!

I recently downloaded David McCullough's 1776 for my iPOD (the abridged version 5 hours vs. 11). We listened to it during our Christmas travels. History does make you realize how lazy we are these days.

Good luck in 07.

Lon