Crowd blasts tax rate plans

Commissioners get earful from angry citizens at hearing

Friday, May 16, 2008

The 14 citizens who stepped out of the seats of the auditorium at the county government building in La Plata consisted mainly of senior citizens and real estate agents who protested the 9 percent rise in property taxes predicted during the current economic downturn.

Some of the anger was orchestrated, like the dozens of ‘‘Tax Relief Now” signs distributed to the audience by the Southern Maryland Association of Realtors. But there was plenty of genuine fury to go around.

‘‘Little consideration has been given to the average family,” charged Kay Shank of Nanjemoy, referencing the recent spikes in food and fuel costs. Shank doubted that her words made an impact, saying that the commissioners have ‘‘already made your decision, just as you have in years past.”

‘‘I was surprised to see all these seats aren’t filled,” said Laura Quaco of Nanjemoy. ‘‘It’s just an awful thing what is happening to Charles County citizens. ... We want to be here, but it’s getting so hard to stay.”

‘‘I can’t believe you are proposing a 9 percent tax increase in a recession,” said Ed Hopkins of La Plata, noting that fertilizer for his farm has quadrupled in price.

‘‘I can’t help but wonder where you’ve been hiding,” said Larry Bazzana of La Plata. ‘‘Why would you even think about raising property taxes?”

The county isn’t raising the property tax rate from its current $1.026 per $100 of assessment, but it isn’t lowering the tax rate to offset the rapid rise in state tax assessments on local properties either.

The commissioners are not proposing to lower the rate to achieve a ‘‘constant yield,” so property tax revenues could rise by $11 million or 9 percent of the total operating budget this year.

Even though most analysts believe that local property values are dropping, they still have not dropped from the spectacular high prices achieved during the real estate boom. Charles County residents have never been taxed at the full boom-time assessment of their homes because the county’s Homestead Tax Rate has held the annual tax increase to a maximum of 7 percent each year.

Officials believe it could be 2012 before Homestead-throttled tax increases finally catch up with falling property values.

In the meantime, the county has bet on steady tax increases for the next four fiscal years in order to pay for project and program initiatives, for which the crowd had little use Wednesday night. Speakers frequently lambasted the purchase of the Capital Clubhouse ice rink, the construction of Regency Furniture Stadium and other initiatives touted by the county.

‘‘We’re here to tax and spend again,” said Bill Liebrecht of La Plata. ‘‘We don’t have a tax problem; we have a spending problem.”

Liebrecht said he would kill off the county’s minority business and dialogue programs, because ‘‘they don’t do anything.” And he said that the county’s new high school doesn’t need a pool because ‘‘students already have water on their brains.”

‘‘What do you do with my money?” asked Crystal Kijesky of La Plata. ‘‘I don’t see it.”

Mark Holt of Indian Head said the commissioners ‘‘seem to be cannibalizing the American dream to create a pipeline of cash for projects like the cross-county connector,” a controversial extension of Billingsley Road’s four lanes across sensitive wetlands to Bryans Road. Holt called on citizens to ‘‘take the keys and install a Breathalyzer” on the county budget.

As commissioners’ President F. Wayne Cooper (D) tried to wrap up the hearing, his voice was drowned by someone shouting, ‘‘Do you hear us, though?”

The commissioners plan to set the tax rate Tuesday. They left the public record open for comment until Monday.