Dear County Commissioner, I understand you are considering raising our taxes 5.4 cents to raise $7.6 million. Please reconsider and do not raise our taxes. We are currently the sixth highest in the state out of 100 counties; by raising the taxes we will be the third highest, not an enviable position to be in. Ask any sales person in real estate business. What we need to do is grow our tax base, through new housing developments, having businesses and industries move here for their new headquarters. This can be done only by having a lower property tax than our major competitor Mecklenburg County which is at their new rate of 81 cents. This will put Mecklenburg two cents behind us, so we need to hold the line, by this time next year they will be ahead of us. By having a lower property tax rate more people will want to move here and the more people means more property taxes, simple economics. By having more people living here and paying property taxes we can then have lower property taxes. Now back to a solution for not raising our county tax. I know you Commissioners are in a difficult position; however, gentleman have we consider all available options? For instance I know that the hospital leases the land and the building from the county, for a dollar a year. How about if the county sells the building and the land to the hospital? Would this not provide much needed funding for county employees and county teachers to receive much needed raises, would this not allow for money to be used for the laundry list of county items that need to be maintained and fixed, would some of the money be used to pay down some of your school bond debt and still allow you the Commissioners to replenish your “rainy day” fund balance? Of course it would and this is all possible. Yes, I am sure you would lose control of the Hospital Board of Directors; but, isn’t this the problem in America today where government is trying to take over the health care system now and they can’t even manage the post office without a deficit. Let the hospital run their business they know how to run without government interference. Sounds like a conservative, common sense, win, win situation all the way around and in the end the citizens of Gaston County will be the ones that benefit. Jim Gallagher Gastonia Gallagher is a Gastonia City Councilman.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 00:19:06 +0000
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