Thurgood Marshall graduation 2012
Badin vs. Versailles
Law Enforcement Memorial Day
Michael D. Pitman reports about Butler County, Ohio, politics, county government, countywide issues and Butler County people just like you for Cox Ohio Publishing (including the Hamilton JournalNews, Middletown Journal and several weekly papers in Butler County). He wants your suggestions and questions for more news stories. Leave a comment for him here or e-mail Michael at Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > October > 09
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Propery appraisals - another homeowner’s story
Helen Plank just called to tell me how impressed she was by how Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds’ office responded to her concerns about how her property was appraised in this year’s controversial tax reappraisal.
We first met Helen at a town hall meeting at Ross Twp., where Reynolds suggested that the public contact his office and he can help them if they think their appraisals are too high. Here’s that number again: (513) 887-3154.
And help they did, Plank said. She owns several houses in Trenton and saw all of their taxable values reduced considerably, she said, and someone from the office spent a few days at her house pouring over the records.
Her home’s tax value originally shot from $61,000 to $116,230, she said, but the auditor’s office dropped it back to $62,500 — “there’s not a $50,000 home on my street, except for mine,” she said. Another house’s value dropped from about $52,000 to $51,000 with help from the auditor’s office, when that office originally had it at $70,000. Yet another home’s tax value dropped from $80,000 to $46,590, she said.
She said they were very responsive to her needs.
This is in sharp contrast to George Kiniyalocts, a Middletown property owner who is not pleased with the process.
Have you contested your property values? What was your experience?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: County Auditor
TweetButch Hubble’s platform
Butch Hubble, the Democrat challenging incumbent Republican County Commission President Charles Furmon in November, just stopped by and dropped off this statement:
When I left here 40 years ago to begin my military service, we had public transportation like local and greyhound bus service. We had passenger trains that stopped here. Our towns had industries such as automobile manufactory, paper mills and large safe companies.
Where did it all go and why?
In the past 6 months I have traveled nearly all over this county visiting townships, villages and city councils. I have been looking around and talking to people about our economy. The attitudes and comments are remarkably similar about what we need to do to boost our economy. It was well noted that a few areas are doing quite well as far as local development goes, but most of our towns are not.
We have the resources to keep up with the rest of this country but are recourses seem to be going to waste. Our infrastructure does not make sense in a lot of places. We have 45 percent of our traffic traveling on 3 percent of our roads. We build large malls and forget about the needs of small businesses.
One would assume the people in Hamilton, Ross or Millville as examples would want to shop in the large department stores. But if they do not have a car or know some who can give them a ride, then how are they going to get there? What is even more disturbing is that in a recent survey it was found that one third of family income is spent on transportation. We need to first rebuild our base and start thinking about the future a lot more.
The lack of employment is a serious detriment to the future of our county. Yet people are transported in from Cincinnati to work in our malls while we’ve got families in our county standing in the unemployment and food line every week.
I certainly have had enough of this type of government. Change is not going to happen on it’s own. We have got to do something to improve what is going on in our towns, districts and county.
As you commissioner, I will start by bringing the type of employment to our area that will affect our local pool of citizens in a positive way.
We need to move away from the traditional way of thinking by bringing in fresh minds to help repair and rejuvenate our torn economic base.
We can start the fix now. But we can’t do much if we stay with the same old routine. It is well known that if you do the same things over and over you will get the same results. We need new-experienced leaders that will bring innovative methods to lead us up and out of these hard times.
I will work to have our county take the lead in using alternative energy. I will help maintain and keep a balanced budget to work with. I will help stream line the health care services to make it more user friendly and I will work to ensure our education system is balanced through out the county.
I believe that by working as a complete team and building on the resources we have, we can create more jobs, help those who are losing heir homes and make the American dream an American reality for all people.
I am that proven leader. I bring over forty years of leadership and management to the table. I have a proven track record of success. It’s time for the old ways to step aside and let new fresh thinking and management move us forward
I will reduce the inner competition, help adjust the tax base to cause a more equal distribution of funds and focus our efforts as a team to ensure we all move forward.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: County Commission
TweetJudge Niehaus’ legacy
I went to the ceremony Wednesday where they renamed the county’s juvenile justice center the Judge David J. Niehaus Juvenile Justice Center in honor of the late judge.
It was a tearful occasion, and it was clear that the judge was loved and respected by many.
They presented a PowerPoint presentation based on a speech Niehaus gave some years ago. I thought it was a moving speech, so I give it to you below (click on the upper right corner to enlarge):
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