Pirate's Cove

Strange how this always seems to involve tax increases, instead of Believers practicing what they preach

Commissioner proposes tax increase to help Orange County meet its climate-change goals

Climate change is at a crisis point, Commissioner Mark Marcoplos says, and Orange County could mount a faster response with the extra money from a quarter-cent increase in the property tax rate.

“I’ve just been thinking about it and thinking about it, and suddenly, I thought, you know, this is serious business,” Marcoplos said. “We need to do something that requires a little bit of a sacrifice to put some serious money into battling climate change.”

The county has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% by 2025, and also to make the switch to a 100% renewable energy-based economy by 2050. Marcoplos included a list of projects that potentially could help meet those goals in his proposal.

Marcoplos’ proposed increase of 0.25-cent per $100 of assessed property value would be on top of a planned tax rate increase the county manager has proposed to help pay for operations and debt. The commissioners could approve a final tax rate increase June 11.

County Manager Bonnie Hammersley already has recommended a 1.5-cent tax rate increase this year, and possibly more increases through 2022, totaling 9.13 cents. The commissioners could also raise the tax rate by 5.8 cents now and bank the additional money for future debt payments.

A 1.5-cent increase would make the county’s tax rate 86.54 cents per $100 in property value. The owner of a $300,000 home would pay a $2,596.20 property tax bill, roughly $45 more than the current bill.

Marcoplos’s proposed 0.25-cent tax rate increase would add $7.50 to the tax bill for that $300,000 property.

It may not seem like much, but you start adding this increase into all the other cost of living increases, and it starts adding up. Further, why burden just property owners? These same people would melt down if you said that only property owners should be given a vote. Why not spread the tax around to everyone? Especially since this is an extremely liberal county. It went overwhelmingly for Hillary, Obama twice, Kerry, and Gore, thinking back through this century. It wasn’t even close. Orange County is where Chapel Hill resides.

So, why do they need a tax increase? If 74% of the residents were Hillary voters (only 1 county had higher support, Durham, which is right next to Orange), one would think they could give up their own use of fossil fuels and make their lives carbon neutral, right?

He takes the property tax rate “very seriously,” Marcoplos said, but his proposed increase is a small price to pay for practical solutions to “a planetary crisis” that experts say may cause irreversible damage in 10 to 12 years.

“We’re not just throwing money away to get some mysterious climate change benefit,” he added. “There are economic benefits, creating jobs, putting money in people’s pockets with weatherization (savings), the energy savings. Right now, alternative energy is roughly equal to grid energy in cost, and it is getting more and more cost effective.”

Sounds like more of an excuse to take more money from citizens.