One of the most versatile and gifted people in American history announced the invention of bifocal eyeglasses this month in 1785. Benjamin Franklin had been using one pair of glasses to read with and another for distant vision. Tired of switching between pairs, he had the two pairs of lenses cut in half and mounted in the same frame. The idea of these split lenses, or bifocals, was slow to be adopted because of cost. Among Franklin’s many other inventions were watertight bulkheads for ships, the lightning rod, and the wood stove. Today, Americans spend over $8.2 billion a year at the nation’s nearly 16,000 optical stores for frames and lenses, including bifocals. Profile America is in its 17th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
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The letter to the editor in Sunday’s paper got me to looking at the list of unpaid property taxes. I haven’t taken my papers for re-cycle yet. Is City Councilman Brenda Peace Jenkins the owner/preacher of the Greater Little Zion Holiness church? If she is, then she should pay her property taxes before she tells others what to do! It took a lot longer to figure out who is number one and number two in unpaid taxes. Somebody check my work. Number one looks to be a company called BAPA Corporation and they owe $38,000. Is number two Kerr Lake Country Club? According to the list in the paper they owe almost $16,000. I think until their taxes are paid no trophies are awarded and nothing about their golf tournament appear in the paper. Am I right?
Where is everybody? Where is all the news? I would expect the property tax-paying public to be fighting mad to see property taxes going up almost 15 percent. Yet…nothing about it on HiH. Nothing about all the obamascandals; only accolades for his radio address on how to build a thriving middle class? On what planet? It surely is not happening here in Henderson, USA.
Lucy, there are at least three or four council members who will begin to whittle away at that proposed tax increase. With a new sewer plant being built, I was happy to see proposed sewer rates no higher than that.
Whittle away whittle away–Griffin has got to be kidding. Lucy is correct–this blog should finally take off for sure–. Where are the taxpayers who actually are current on their bill?
There are places to cut–let the City follow all of us who are on a budget and are tightening belts–another notch.
Maybe Coffey was still upset that her husband had been previously arrested for assault according to today’s Daily Dispatch. Oh……what a life we lead……when we continue to deceive!!!!
I think he was arrested on May 17th and has a Court Date on May 21st……wonder if he has to go to Court and sit for hours and hours like everyone else? Only to have it continued!!! LOL!!!
Mr. Bobby Gupton, Mr. Tom Hannon, Mrs. Alyssa Yount and many others warned city residents about how they are paying well too much in comparison to county residents for jointly funded programs. There has been no action taken what so ever by the City Council regarding this matter. City residents should be looking at a tax reduction, not an increase. Now is the time for action. How about some leadership Mayor O’Geary?
Mayor O’Geary…..Leadership? Two words that don’t even fit together in a sentence with any amount of sanity. This guy is nothing more than a puppet who has his strings being pulled by the puppet master and a few other cronies. Purdy Pete is not going to rock the boat on what is supposedly his last term as Mayor. Rumor is it that mike rainey is lining up for the position already. You know how H-Town is…….the Jointly Funded Ventures will never be looked at by the current city council b/c not ONE of them has the intestinal fortitude to do what is right.
Nothing like a little tax increase to get the comments flowing.
Deception, you have spent a goodly amount of time among those who benefit from criminal activities to know that of what you speak. Your knowledge of such things and your frequent extended absences seals our understanding of your normal daily activities. My guess, your revelation will have little impact on the cost of your next posting.
It’s about time the taxpayers of Henderson declared war on these joint funded projects, we simply can’t afford it any longer. The tax base of Henderson is dying and the city is about broke, call your city council representive and let them know how you feel. We don’t have to take this lying down keeping our mouths shut. While we’re on the the subject does any one know how much money the city of Henderson is currently contributing to joint funded projects ??
Anonymous……things that make you go HMMMMMMM? It’s called the newspaper and being out in the community. You would be surprised if you would get from behind your computer screen and find out for yourself just how “fake” some of the self-proclaimed upstanding members of the Henderson/Vance community are. But for now……stay hidden behind your monitor and take yo’ mama some $$$ b/c I ain’t paying that payment for her computer at Rent-A-Center this month. HiH will just have to do w/o me for a lil’ while longer!!!!
Deception for your edification the specific article in the paper lists only the man’s name, age, charges, nothing about his family status. I spend most of my working hours in the public. As for Rent-A-Center (RCII), I sold my holdings a year ago April and have not returned the stock to my portfolio. Have a good day.
Anonymous…for your edification if Sara(your new crush?) has a husband by the same name as the person arrested and just so happens to live at the same address isn’t that what they call “probable cause”? How dumb are you really? My granny always said you can’t win an argument with an idiot so with that said…..I SURRENDER!!! You win!!!
P.S. I’m sure you’ve got stocks/bonds almost as sure as I am the city council has a “brain”!!! If you do have them it was probably given to you via the “silver spoon syndrome” like 99% of the spoiled lil’ momma’s/daddy’s boys/girls!!!! Nice talking with you though…..I try to speak to at least one person per day with an I.Q. of my shoe size so you have helped me meet that requirement for today. THANKS!!!! GOOD LUCK w/mommy/daddy’s $$$$$!!!!!
Dazed and Confused, (post 11)
I do not know the content of the city’s 2013 – 2014 budget; the County Manager did get the county’s budget posted to the county’s website. In the county’s budget there is a section titled 017 Contribution Other Agencies. This section is comprised of 3 pages and has a total 2013 Request of $1,347,542.00 or $426,220 less than 2012 Revised Budget. Included in the details of this section is a line entry titled Library. Under the column headed 2013 Request is $561,945 for the Library. There should be an amount ear marked for the library in the city’s budget. Combined the two amounts equal the total funds budgeted for the library by the city and county. It is up to all the citizens concerned about the joint funding to read the county’s or city’s budget then to attend the public meetings to ask your questions. Don’t be surprised when the elected officials are unable to answer nor care to answer your question. If we don’t read the budget and ask the questions we have only ourselves to blame for allowing approval of the budget without our collective input.
How ironic that the county’s Total Contribution Other AG for fiscal year 2013 – 2014 is $1,347,542 or just $61,232.86 less than the 2012 tax liens of $1,408,774.86. Begs an answer to my other question, what could the county and city governments do with the $1,151,981.63 due from just the top 100 individuals corporations, and LLCs who have failed to pay their property taxes in one case since 2003?
Take a look at who is voting versus who is actually voting AND paying taxes–and on time to boot..
There’s part of the answer–. Another problem is that no one CAN win from those in office now–a sad truth.
Here is a thought for real comment: What can the City ( or County) do to convince those who owe property tax ( real or personal) to pay up?
Well, I’m not sure if it can be done–but how about tacking Delinquent Tax Notices in large print on the property–and if it applies to anyone in elected office–post it on their nameplates.
Even embarassment isn’t going to make a difference to some–but it is a thought.
Embarrassment only works when a person has a moral compass. I do think instead there are some other options.
1. Ask yourself if you are repulsed by a business owner’s refusal to pay their share of the tax load. If you are, just stop doing business with that business owner and tell others.
2. Ask the County Commissioners to post a daily updated list of tax liens to the county’s web-sit. State statues require the annual publication of tax liens. I am unaware of a statue that prohibits frequent publication of tax liens. Historically printing of the tax liens cost the county money to buy the newspaper ink and paper. Today the tax lien data is part of an electronic dataset that could be updated and posted nightly to the county’s web-site at no cost to the county once established.
3. Ask your local elected officials (excluding those on the tax lien list) to establish a policy requiring all who come before the Board of Commissioners, City Council, School Board and their committees to affirm that their personal and business taxes are current and fully paid before requesting a zoning change, a public endorsement for their organization, special land use permits, etc.
4. Ask our local elected officials, (excluding those on the tax lien list) to proclaim by resolution a request to the State legislature to enact a law requiring all elected officials and officers of the elected bodies to affirm annually that their personal and business taxes are current and fully paid.
Only the first option is a possibility. I seriously doubt the county commissioners have the collective testicular fortitude to require nightly updating and posting of the tax liens to the county’s web-site. Reality tells us commissioners, council members, and school board members are not going to jeopardize their elected position by offending a business man or individual on the tax liens list. I will donate a $100 to the American Red Cross if anyone could find one commissioner or councilmember willing to start the legislative request banning colleague from their elected office when their taxes go are unpaid.
Bottom line—-This is a fine mess we’re in–with no real answer.
prudence, your last post reminded me of some lines from the movie The School of Rock. To paraphrase your posting are you saying “Give up, just quit, because in this life, you can’t win. Yeah, you can try …” Yes, “… the world is run by the Man. The Man, oh, you don’t know the Man. He’s everywhere. In the [commissioners and city council chambers]… And the Man ruined the ozone, he’s burning down the Amazon … And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock ‘n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! …”
A new way to stick it to the man has emerged; it’s called the internet. We can stick it to the Man (our local governments) getting him to post their budget drafts, meeting agendas, the tax liens to their web-sites. We can stick it to the Man when we read those postings. We stick it to the Man when using this blog site to anonymously or as a verified user ask the Man why. Why he expects workers to give their best while denying the workers a fair wage for work. Why selling a brand new house for 60% of what it cost to build is a good use of the taxpayers’ money. We stick it to the Man when we reveal that that some of the Man’s business peers and colleagues do not pay property taxes.
Seemed like we tried this and ‘the man’ took HiH and several others to court
Lets see where is the good news? Mike Raney new mayer. Embasy bunch building something else to give back to the city that is biger than we want and the city can not aford to operate. Joint funded projects that cost the city taxpayer unfairely have not been fixed and those comissioners who said that they would fix the problem did nothing. Taxes that should have been collected have not been collected. Abandoned buildings still roting when they should have been torn down and halled away. The poliece chief , who I think has done a great job with what leadership he had is leaving . Expect the usual long drawn out process looking for a replacement. Perhaps worst of all we have not identified city leaders that we think can do a beter job. Let’s start talking and thinking of how we can elect beter leadership.
I can think of one way to start the ball rolling for new leadership: Require identification before people can register to vote amd at the polls also. Where else can you do business without showing proper id these days?
STOP building any “grant” housing projects.
Prudence please explain to me how the lack of voter identification created our ineffective self-serving elected leadership? If you intend to run for office you have to appear in person to register your intentions to be a candidate. Voter identification does not prevent preachers and community leaders from handing out those who to vote for slips. Never mind the party of fear has agreed to require voter identification even allowing state school photo IDs.
I agree with you about grant housing project. The currently elected officials voted to allow the COG board to stay the course. The COG’s accounting error continued a second year after auditors first reported it to the COG board. The COG board through Danny Wright, a professional certified public accountant, never owned up to their total failure to oversee the COG. Because city and county governments agreed to fund the COG you can expect more grant housing; that is all the GOC does find government grants for government subsidized housing.
I can drive from point A to point B in West Henderson and show you eleven houses with for sale by realtor signs in front of the house. Some of these houses have been for sale for over two years. Every section of the city and the county has dozens of houses for sale, yet we continue to seek funding for even more houses. Why? An old friend who has lived in Henderson for over 75 years answers this way…”Follow the money. Certain developers are tied in politically with businessmen who fund election campaigns in order to keep control of Henderson and Vance County.”
County Boy, did Pete give up his job or are you sharing the future? According to the announcement Sam’s oprey house will be self sufficient regarding operation and maintenance. Because the opery house is owned by a tax except foundation the cost for police patrols, fire protection, street maintenance, etc are covered by the remaining property owners who do pay their property taxes. The rest of your rant I generally agree with. Besides your self can you think of at least one person better qualified to be a commissioner or council member than any of the current bobble heads.
Royal Roster, you are so correct. It took me a while to figure out who actually owns some of the LLC’s that are real estate investments in government housing and the owners don’t pay the taxes. There is not one elected official willing to buck that crowd.
Look around the pews on Sunday–. Wish I could say more of how I really feel.
OILF…Don’t forget the $1.8 million that was “borrowed” from the city over 12 years ago to be used by the Embassy Foundation. At 5% interest, which was the prevailing rate then, it would amount to $3.2 million today. Add that to at least a million in grant money (probably even more) and you can’t say that this is a free facilty. Not by a long shot.