I’ll wait for the news reports to come in before formulating my own opinion, but the tweets from Neil Williamson, of the Free Enterprise Forum, from today were interesting.
Update: Sean Tubbs with Charlottesville Tomorrow has more.
Short question – would you be willing to pay more taxes to fund infrastructure improvements in Crozet? Such as the Lickinghole Creek bridge/connector from Westhall to 250?
Say … $100/year?*
(Illustration: For a house assessed at $350,000, an increase
of 2.8 cents on the tax rate would equate to an annual
increase of $98.00; a 1.6 cent increase on the tax rate
would equate to an annual increase of $56.00. )
A few points from the County presentation: (I highly recommend you read the whole thing)
- Services districts are a tool that have been authorized for decades
- The general purpose of a service district is to provide additional, more complete or more timely services of government than are desired for the locality or localities as a whole
- Service districts are geographic areas composed of less than all of the County’s territory, and whose boundaries are established by the Board of Supervisors
- The Board may levy and collect an annual tax on real property within the service district to pay for the facilities authorized to be provided in the district
- The tax is an ad valorem tax
As the conversation continues
@CrozetGazette @cvilletomorrow excellent point would take VA state legislature to make that even possible @Steve_Landes ?
— Crozet Wx (@Crozetwx) December 8, 2016
Yes. If Crozet's Delegate & Senator patroned the bill, it would pass.
— cvillenews.com (@cvillenewscom) December 8, 2016
And I’d forgotten about these stories
- Should Crozet Become a Town? – from 2007’s cvillenews story.*
- What would Crozet’s budget look like if we were a town?
Important note – When people refer to Crozet as a “town,” they are wrong.
*This is why permanent URLs are important. I’m looking at you, Daily Progress and Albemarle County, the websites of the dead links.
Dig into the tweets – start at the bottom
I would rather see a township of Crozet but would be willing to add to my taxes to support the route to 250.
It will be interesting to see how much the needy are willing to pay for what they want and if they will then demand elected
representatives to determine the need. Also, the size of Crozet
will probably shrink back to it’s historic size…
This is going to be interesting. Personally, I wouldn’t mind the extra property tax to pay for local improvements. However, what I’ve found is that the public as a whole has a different opinion when they hear the words, “tax increase.” Using the term “Super Tax” will probably make any backlash even worse. Even though you can explain to people that (as you illustrated above) the annual increase for a median-valued home would be fairly minuscule ($56-$98 a year, about what a family of 5 that lives in a $350,000 home would spend for one dinner out at a local restaurant), for some reason people overwhelmingly balk at any tax increase. It’s just the way it seems to be.
What really intrigues me is if this idea could be applied to schools. For example, could the tax be used to make much needed improvements to WAHS? In this case it sounds like it would be more for infrastructure improvements, but the pros and cons of using it for things like school improvements would be very interesting…and very controversial I would imagine. Anyway, thanks for sharing. Much appreciated.
-Jason
Regarding improvements at WAHS, the bond referendum for the schools that just passed includes a large chunk for WAHS. From the county’s bond referendum website: “Approximately $6 million for the addition of an estimated three science laboratories and the modernization of approximately seven existing labs at Western Albemarle High School, allowing the new Environmental Studies Academy at that school to operate at full capacity.”
As long as the $100 supports improvements locally (22932), yes please. In a heartbeat.
Upon further thought I feel the question should be should Crozet be turned in to an Urban area? And, who should decide this??
If, as many have claimed, you love Crozet now, what will an Urban, concrete covered Crozet do for you in the future???
Remember, just like the tax rate, there is no going back…