Property Assessment - Revisited

A few weeks ago I wrote about our surprisingly successful effort to get our property reappraisal reconsidered. The Equalization Board is still at it, working on last year's appraisals, STILL.

As Gloucester's Board of Equalization nears the end of its work to rectify mistakes made to recent real estate assessments, the owners of nearly 400 properties are already seeking Circuit Court relief, said an at-large county supervisor.

The statement by Michelle Ressler was made during an informational meeting attended by about 30 people Monday night. She said 398 county properties are the subject of Circuit Court appeals contesting property appraisals by Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal that were reviewed by the board of equalization.

County attorney Bill Stuck said Circuit Court appeals could be filed for three years after the board concludes its work in December.

In Blue Ridge's 2006 appraisals, countywide property values increased by about 80 percent on average and as much as 400 percent in some cases. The appraisals have been the subject of repeated complaints since early this year.

The equalization board has until Dec. 31 to complete the reviews intended to fix discrepancies in property values.

Ressler said more than 7,300 Blue Ridge assessments have been scheduled for review since March. So far, those reviews have reduced countywide private property assessments by $36 million, while increasing commercial property assessments by $99 million, she said.

George Woodhouse, chairman of the Board of Equalization, said the board would also review 528 commercial properties where functional problems that weren't addressed - such as limited access - caused property values to be unduly increased. Those properties will see value reductions by 30 percent or more, he said.

Once the board is finished, the Gloucester Board of Supervisors will have to decide how to handle court challenges.

Stuck, the county attorney, said Gloucester could not ask the court for a blanket nullification of the reassessments. Instead, each appeal to the Circuit Court must be heard individually, he said, answering a resident's question about whether a class action lawsuit was feasible.

Ressler said the county has hired a property assessor and will no longer use an outside contractor for the work. County officials have also decided to reduce the span between assessments from every four years to every two years, she said.

Limits on Acceptable Christmas Wreaths - UPDATED

Today we have this charming story out of Colorado.

In a town in scenic southwestern Colorado homeowners are battling over whether a Christmas wreath that includes a peace sign is an anti-Iraq war protest or even a promotion of Satan.

"We have had three or four complaints. Some people have kids in Iraq and they are sensitive," said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He also said some believe it is a symbol of Satan.

Jeff Heitz, of the association board, sent a letter to Lisa Jensen saying: "Loma Linda residents are offended by the peace sign displayed on the front of your house. ... This Board will not allow any signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive...."

The subdivision's convenants say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee.

When Kearns ordered the association's architectural control committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath removed, they refused. Jack Lilly, chairman of the group, said it decided it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Lilly also said he had received no complaints from homeowners. Kearns fired all five members of the committee.

"Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," said Kearns in a telephone interview Sunday. Earlier another homeowner had complied when required to take down a peace sign that was made of a pie plate held up by two skis.

Jensen, a past president of the association in the subdivision of 200 homes 270 miles southwest of Denver, said: "I honestly wasn't thinking of the Iraq war. Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing. I am not going to take it down until after Christmas. Now that it has come to this I feel I can't get bullied. What if they don't like my Santa Claus."

Kearns said the association will fine Jensen $25 a day for every day it remains up. She calculates that will cost her about $1,000, although she doubts they will be able to make her pay.

Kearns, meanwhile, also said he was concerned about the pagan symbolism of the peace sign. "It's also an anti-Christ sign. That's how it started," he told the Durango Herald.

Let's start with the last part. First, the pagan symbolism thing, is a load of you-know-what. Some will try to tell you otherwise, but unless you are willing to concede Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill as Satanists, I think you better let it rest.

Second, I suppose in the wild and wacky world of Home Owners Associations and the courts, someone might rule that an offensive pagan religious display may be banned. However, at this point, out of consistency, Mr. Kearns will be telling everyone to take down their lights and Santas. If you ban one religious display, you've got to ban them all.

"Oh, it's only those pagans we're trying to stop." Really? Where do you draw the line at pagan (i.e. non-Christian)? Does that allow you to prevent someone from displaying a menorah on their lawn? What about if the local Morman family (and there are plenty in Colorado) wants to put up a lighted Rudolph? There are certainly some who don't consider the LDS church as Christian. To them, it's a crazy cult.

Third, crazy as our culture is, I suppose they can ban it based on the concept that it is "political". However, the First Amendment says

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

So, if the wreath is carrying a religious message or a political one (petition for redress), the first amendment explicitly protects it. Thus, the proper stance for Ms. Jensen is to tell Mr. Kearns to F- Off! Signs, billboards, and advertising are supposedly banned without approval of the HOA, and those aren't political speech, and so enjoy lesser Constitutional protection. Fine. But by Mr. Kearns own statement, he believes the matter is political, so he's damned himself here.

(By the way, does this mean everyone would be OK with this if she hung the wreath in her car window? Then, it's not attached to the 'architecture'. How about, if she gets one of those old-fashioned 'colored light-wheel' things you would use with an aluminum Christmas tree, and just projects a peace symbol on her own house?)

Fourth, did you notice in the article that the whole matter went through the proper channels and when Mr. Kearns didn't get the response he wanted from the architectural review board he fired them en masse? Wow! Quite a democratic process they've got going there when the president of the HOA can just fire anyone that doesn't agree with him.

UPDATE - Well the HOA has backed down and apologized for the misunderstanding. The two silly HOA doofuses (doofi?) that ordered the wreath's removal have now changed to unlisted phone numbers. The "complainer" has been publicly identified, and no doubt will be changing his phone number soon, too.

And that five-member architectural review board that heard, but rejected, the original complaint? The board turns out to include two Vietnam and one Korean War vet. Apparently someone understands what freedon is about.

Home Science Experiment

As Jamie would say on MythBusters, "now that's what I'm talking about!" I definitely think this kid is destined for something great, based on this science fair project. Hopefully that's some thing great and "good".

On the surface, Thiago Olson is like any typical teenager.

In the basement of his parents' Oakland Township home, tucked away in an area most aren't privy to see, Thiago is exhausting his love of physics on a project that has taken him more than two years and 1,000 hours to research and build -- a large, intricate machine that , on a small scale, creates nuclear fusion.

Nuclear fusion -- when atoms are combined to create energy -- is "kind of like the holy grail of physics," he said.

In fact, on http://www.fusor.net/, the Stoney Creek senior is ranked as the 18th amateur in the world to create nuclear fusion. So, how does he do it? Pointing to the steel chamber where all the magic happens, Thiago said on Friday that this piece of the puzzle serves as a vacuum. The air is sucked out and into a filter.

Then, deuterium gas -- a form of hydrogen -- is injected into the vacuum. About 40,000 volts of electricity are charged into the chamber from a piece of equipment taken from an old mammogram machine. As the machine runs, the atoms in the chamber are attracted to the center and soon -- ta da -- nuclear fusion.

Can You Say "Ouch?"

Feel fortunate that the on-line version of the paper doesn't include photos. The original print article did.

Q: How was severe constipation treated in early 17th-century Virginia?

A: One method called for using a foot-long iron tool called a "spatula mundani."

"Mundani" derives from the word "mundify," which means "to make clean," says a Web site run by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

The tool's spoon end was used for the actual medical procedure. The spatula end was probably used for stirring or applying ointments.

Archaeologists found a spatula mundani at Jamestown. Records say it was shipped there with other medical tools in 1609.

The Yorktown Pub's in Trouble

I've written several entries in which I mentioned the Yorktown Pub, most recently on 19 October. Now it seems that they are in some trouble.

A popular watering hole is under state scrutiny following several reports of over-serving alcohol to patrons, one of whom has been tied to the death of a Hampton man in a September boat crash.

Agents with the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control are investigating whether the Yorktown Pub has violated state liquor laws in several cases of dangerously excessive drinking over the past three months.

The investigation stems from the boat crash that killed 27-year-old Casey Marks of Hampton, said ABC spokeswoman Beth Straeten. Marks and two Poquoson men had been drinking at the pub before they boarded a Boston whaler on Sept. 12 and crashed full-speed into a pier along the Yorktown waterfront...

An ABC investigator is also looking into two cases from October in which pub patrons were so drunk that they had to be hospitalized. On Oct. 20, a York County sheriff's deputy came across a group of sailors crowded around an unconscious man near the Yorktown Pub. Witnesses said the man had been drinking at the pub and was heavily inebriated, according to a search warrant for the man's medical records and toxicology tests.

I'm a bit surprised at this. Most of their patrons tend to be middle-class middle-age old farts, like me. Hardly the type you'd think would get that plastered in public. Note the reference to the 20th? I'm guessing the "group of sialors" are the same we were in the pub with that night.

The Bottom Drops Out on Starbucks...

I've been waiting for this. Even here, in quasi-rural Virginia the density of Starbucks has now exceeded that of McDonalds. There is one spot, around our nearest mall, where there are now at least 7 Starbucks inside a 2 mile diameter circle. Our local grocery chain, Farm Fresh, is putting a Starbucks kiosk in all their new and renovated stores.

Despite all the openings, it's down the tubes time. (Guys, this is called "market saturation". You might want to look the term up.) -

Starbucks Corp. said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit slipped 5 percent, but only because of changes in accounting rules. Despite solid revenue growth and a record number of new store openings, the results sent the stock sinking in after-hours trading.

Uh-huh. Those pesky accounting rules are doing it again.

Revenue for the quarter was $2 billion, up 20 percent from $1.66 billion in the same period last year...Starbucks opened 2,199 new store stores in fiscal 2006, setting a company record and boosting its worldwide store count to 12,440.

So you have 21% more stores than a year ago, and your sales revenue, not accounting for inflation, has increased by 20% in the same period. The Consumer Price Index is up 1.3% over a year ago, so their adjusted revenue growth is more like 19%. It would be interesting to look at their quarterly filings and see what same-store-sales have done over last year. I suspect they are way down.

Still, you gotta love this quote. -

Some analysts voiced concerns about increased payroll costs, which the company attributed to staffing more stores with assistant managers. Chairman Howard Schultz said it was part of a strategy to make sure the company has enough trained managers to keep its steadily growing number of stores running smoothly.

Should I be amused that not all stores had assistant managers before? I mean, what happens when the manager isn't there? Who's in charge? On the other hand, given the penchant for fast food places to make assistant managers out of anyone who lasts 6 months, this makes a sort of twisted sense. We'll give these guys there own stores to manage!

Though I'd also note that the first stores were big, spacious and full of comfy chairs, and then the new stores were smaller with cafe tables, then tiny with a drive-through window, and now a kiosk in my grocery store. Coming next, a guy with a cart on the street. Damn, too late, they're already here. Gosh, what a privilege to be the "Manager" of one of those.

Moderate vs Extremist

I don't think I can make this point any better than James Taranto, so I won't try.

In a USA Today op-ed, Kirsten Powers, a onetime Clinton administration official, celebrates the rise of "moderate" Democrats:

It was critical that Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York--who ran the campaign committees--recruited candidates palatable to conservative or moderate voters who wanted to send a message about the war, but who didn't want to compromise on beliefs about abortion, gay marriage or the role of religion in public life. . ..

In North Carolina, Democrat Heath Shuler ran as a born-again Christian who opposes abortion. Pro-gun Brad Ellsworth, who opposes abortion and favors an amendment banning gay marriage, will be a new representative from red-state Indiana. Rep. Ted Strickland, a United Methodist minister, became the first Democrat to win as governor in Ohio in 20 years.

This column is scrupulously nonpartisan, so it falls to us to point out the double standard here: How come Democrats who oppose abortion and same-sex marriage are "moderates," while Republicans who hold the same views are "extremists"?

Boo hoo hoo

Won't somebody do something for these poor guys?

Likening themselves to prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, a dozen inmates on death row in Texas have staged hunger strikes over the last month to protest what they call abusive conditions, including 23 hours a day of isolation in their cells...Since death row was moved from an older and more open facility in 2000, he said, “We lost all our group recreation, art programs, and supplies.”

The quote above is from Steven Woods, one of the hunger strikers on death row. Don't you feel sorry for him?

Personally, I think I'll save my sympathy for the family of Bethena Lyn Brosz, the young women, almost my own daughter's age, that Steven Woods murdered.

Shenandoah National Park

I haven't posted for a week or more, because there was a break while we visited Shenandoah National Park. It was nice to get out of town for a few days.

The first day we stopped off at a couple of wineries. First up was Barboursville where we tasted everything they had(about 15 wines), and bought a half dozen to take home.

Then we crossed the road to Horton, where we definitely did not taste everything, as they had about 40 varieties on display, but did buy three more bottles. The tasting room didn't look like the website either; there was barely enough room to turn around.

We popped up over the mountain, and spent the night in Waynesboro. The next morning we drove north up the valley past the Virginia version of the Coors brewery, and did some shopping at Art Studio Pottery. Later we stopped off in Staunton, but not much was open, it being Sunday.

So, we drove up into the park, and headed up to our hotel at Skyland. Winnie wants me to say "we went hiking on the Appalachian Trail, and saw a bear." I call that technically correct, but a deceptively creative use of a conjuctive clause. It was a beautiful spot though, a thousand feet above the valley, with the rooms looking out over the ridges turning blue at sunset, and pink at sunrise. Views in between are of the little farms and towns, and all their lights at night. It was a nice little trip.

Property Assessment

Winnie and I had to travel up to the courthouse today to meet with our local Board of Equalization about a reassessment of our house. Only a year ago our assessment had been increased from $86K to $155K. That seemed reasonable to us, given there hadn't been a general reassessment in about 10 years. But the new valuation, of $224K seemed a bit much.

Our property, lying so close to US 17, is zoned B-1. As part of a reevaluation, they had decided to increase the assessment on our land by over $89K. That's a pretty hefty hike considering our lot is only 0.3 acres. There wasn't to be any change to the value of the house.

So, we wrote them a protest letter, noting the great increase, that this property though in business zoning was, in fact, our residence, comparing the (old) assessments of other properties in the area, and noting the current advertised prices for B-1 zones lots in our area.

Amazingly enough, they agreed. Since they can't do anything about the formula they use to calculate the value of the land, they are decreasing the valuation on the house to $1000 (that's not a mis-typing) from $101K. So, our overall assessment will decrease by $11K, bring us back in line with what we think it is worth.

For their part, I guess it provides a recognition that anyone that wanted this property for a business would be planning on razing the house anyway. What a pity that would be, given all the time and effort we've put into fruit trees and such.

I just hope this doesn't freak out the guys at Allstate. Remember folks, I have a replacement value policy!