Letters: Chesterfield Must Increase Revenue

Chesterfield Must Increase Revenue
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Regarding the news article "Budget Cuts Expected": As new home construction and assessed values spiked from 2001 to 2008, Chesterfield reduced its real estate tax rate from $1.08 to $0.95 and still managed to grow revenue. With the benefit of hindsight, these tax rate cuts during good times laid the foundation for the current budget crisis. Other Virginia localities offset the drop in home values by increasing the tax rate to preserve funding for essential government services including police, schools, fire and EMS, and mental health.

Last year, in a most uncertain economic environment, our Board of Supervisors decided to not take this action, which resulted in one of the largest budget reductions compared with counties of similar size. If Chesterfield is truly a "First Choice" community, its elected leaders must resist the inclination to slash core government services needed by its residents. For example, short-sighted cuts in mental health care for our most vulnerable citizens are likely to result in the need for more intensive and costly government services down the road (e.g., crisis intervention, courts, and jails), not to mention the public safety risk.

The budget solution must include a thorough review of all services and the willingness to restore the tax rate. Without shoring up revenue, our Board of Supervisors will be responsible for weakening the fabric of services and supports essential to the wellbeing of the county's citizens. Hopefully, Chesterfield will take the necessary actions to preserve its well-earned claim of "First Choice" community.

Mike Giancaspro.
Chesterfield.

Free country? I need the government's permission, via licensing laws, to travel and to earn a living. The government can intercept my communications without a warrant and classify me a "dangerous radical" merely for having the temerity to assert my rights.

Free press? Anyone relying on old media is being spoon-fed pabulum, like your laughable editorial. The mainstream press is hopelessly owned and co-opted by the corporate state.

Right to assemble? By definition, we don't need permission to exercise rights. Yet, try assembling for a political protest in a city anywhere in the U.S. without first getting a permit. Next time you feel like getting manhandled by the police, go to a town hall meeting and exercise your right to engage in political speech with your elected representative. We are now in the deplorable position of needing the government's permission to protest the government.

Free elections? By a margin of more than 100-to-1 we called our elected representatives and told them not to pass the TARP bill. Democrats and Republicans, anxious to serve Wall Street, banded together and passed it anyway, blithely stealing money from us. Who shall we elect in the fall, the big-money, big-government Democrats or the big-money, big-government Republicans? The entrenched political system hopes to limit this peaceful revolution to redecorating the walls inside the prison; shall we be content?

It's time to gently but firmly blow the dust from the Bill of Rights. Goethe: "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."

J. L. Jacoby.
Glen Allen.

Richmond's city government, ever confusing prudent management with tribal protocol, got me a good one this year. The city assessor raised my real estate assessment 234 percent above last year. I appealed before the tribunal for a reduction; no response yet.

I had a flash image of the assessor and Mayor Dwight Jones, heads together, divining to the penny the moment just before I would simply quit this city. They were equating that moment with how many studies may be necessary to schmooze the gullible into a Shockoe Bottom ballpark, among other tomfooleries.

I presented my outrage and lamentation to my Crossroads Coffee claque. A young Iranian, possessing that wonderful mercantile mind of the Persians, offered a solution, which I submit for City Council's consideration:

The city assesses my property. If I find it unacceptable, I can require the city to buy my property for 90 percent of that assessment. If I am wrong, the city can make money selling my property. If the city is wrong, it will eventually collapse -- capitalism in its pristine form.

Sam Forrest.
Richmond.