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According to the Chaffee County assessor, my net worth increased by about $49,000 last year, all without my lifting a finger.
Our old house went from a valuation of $38,639 to $60,777. We still own it because, when we bought a bigger house in 1989, we couldn't sell our it.
It was on the market for two years at $30,000 back then; we never received a single offer, not even an insulting one. And so we became landlords.
The house we live in went from $79,229 to $106,051. Since my career -- freelance writing, sporadic computer hackwork, minor-league publishing -- is not especially remunerative, I never dared imagine that someday I would live in a $100,000 house.
And a desirable one, it appears. The other day, we got a
letter from a total stranger, who said he had been driving
around the historic district of Salida
looking at
houses. He asked if ours was for sale. A friend suggested I
reply that We were driving around in our old pickup with
the gun rack, looking for things to shoot at. Let us know
when you're available.
The new appraisals have been the talk of town -- just about everybody I encounter has a similar horror story about outrageous property assessments.
Horror story? Why should people be complaining about increases in their property values?
Most seem to fear that their property taxes will rise
commensurately. Often I hear this theory: The idea is to
jack up the valuations, then the taxes go up, and we all
get forced to sell out. Salida gets a better class of
people -- cell-phone androids that will support all the
city's proposed new anti-loitering laws because they never
stay still for more than 20 seconds and they honk at you if
you've stopped in the street to chat with somebody going
the other way.
Plus, if we've got to move on because we've been
priced out, the Realtors have more stuff to sell and get
commissions on. So this works out for everybody except us,
and when did you ever hear of a local government that
worried about local residents?
Patiently I point out that increased valuations don't necessarily mean increased property taxes -- thanks to various constitutional spending limitations (Doug Bruce is good for something, after all), the mill levy should drop proportionately, and local taxes should stay about the same.
Then comes another argument. Well, that may be true,
as far as it goes. But higher valuations increase the
bonding capacity. The city and the school district will get
some expensive ideas -- a new middle school, a bigger water
plant, whatever -- and they'll ram through a bond issue,
and our taxes will go up so that we can subsidize all this
growth that we don't want. All that talk about growth
paying its own way -- what a bunch of crap.
Again, I point out that bond issues require elections, and such elections often fail here.
But we cheapskates are getting outnumbered, Quillen.
I tell you, this like living inside a John Nichols novel --
it's all a capitalist plot to drive us out. Where do you
plan on moving to?
Well, actually, I hadn't given much thought to that. Until recently, Salida was a pretty good place to live -- slow and easy, so that you could spend your time productively or pleasantly instead of fending off attacks from the municipal government.
But now we're getting water meters, as required by state law. It would seem to me that the state's interest lies only in Salida's water rights -- as long as the city is diverting or pumping no more than it is supposed to, the rest of it is none of the state's concern.
The General Assembly presumably enacted the meter
requirement to encourage water conservation.
(Of
course it's an unfunded mandate, or at least I haven't seen
the check for the $1,600 it will cost to install two
meters.)
That is, if we're charged by the gallon, we'll use less, and more water will be available.
Available for what? For more subdivisions, more strip malls, more big bluegrass lawns (often required by covenants -- if the state can mandate meters, why can't it outlaw such covenants?) in distant cities whose residents often flock here.
All this means more traffic, more noise, more congestion, more people ahead of me in lines, more difficulty finding a place to park (sometimes in front of my own home) -- in short, a diminished quality of life.
Now, it's hard to put a dollar figure on this, but it should be possible. Some economists and ecologists got together recently to reckon that Mother Nature contributed $33 trillion to the world economy each year -- and if they can calculate that, they shouldn't have much trouble figuring the cost of water conservation in Salida.
And with that number, I could appeal my appraisal, and go back to living in a home, instead of maintaining an investment.
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