Time to cut back the property appraisals that Johnson County uses for property taxes. In some cases I think this may be happening but do assessments reflect the fifteen to twenty percent loss of value in our county's real estate? I doubt it. I ask you, the reader and the Johnson County bureaucracy in all of its expensive glory, "Are assessments really reflecting market value?"
Of course we might be able to get rid of all these precious little cities and have one county-city bureaucracy. It could save a lot of money and allow us to cut back on city and county employees so we can balance the budget.
Screw the so called new prison sales tax. It's a sales tax that sucks and never sunsets. Crime rates are going down and too many people are in prison anyway. Lets stop building a police state in our county. Let's stop it now!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
YOUTUBE PROPERTY VALUES ARE DOWN, WHAT ABOUT JOCO APPRAISALS?
YouTube is pretty cool, at least to some extent, and if you look at videos about Johnson County, Kansas you will get about eight hundred results. Most of them are folks trying to sell real property in the county.
Perhaps this is why we don't see more house for sale signs. Folks are trying to stealthily sell property. I really don't know. Maybe they all have a realtor and a sign in their yard.
What does this mean? I think it means that it is a buyer's market and folks are trying to sell at lower and lower prices. What does the County Appraiser say? Oh yeah, did they help pump up the
subprime bubble?
Perhaps this is why we don't see more house for sale signs. Folks are trying to stealthily sell property. I really don't know. Maybe they all have a realtor and a sign in their yard.
What does this mean? I think it means that it is a buyer's market and folks are trying to sell at lower and lower prices. What does the County Appraiser say? Oh yeah, did they help pump up the
subprime bubble?
MINISTRY OF JUSTICE
I never have understood the elan of a pair of handcuffs hanging from one's car mirror. What are the driver's of those cars thinking? That's the way Johnson County sort of seems to me now that it
has passed a permanent prison tax.
Prisons, prisons, everywhere and you know the country is headed in the wrong direction. Maybe the big shot county commissioners like the idea of building prisons. They can put any dissident citizens in them and raise property taxes again.
More seriously the whole prison industrial complex is a gravely misguided way to build a law abiding society. Other nations seem to do a better job in this area and I am not talking about China or Saudi!
Johnson County needs to stop living in the nineties. Lets start dealing with the real needs of real people in this county and the metropolitan area. Lets stop raising sales and property taxes especially for a domestic police state.
has passed a permanent prison tax.
Prisons, prisons, everywhere and you know the country is headed in the wrong direction. Maybe the big shot county commissioners like the idea of building prisons. They can put any dissident citizens in them and raise property taxes again.
More seriously the whole prison industrial complex is a gravely misguided way to build a law abiding society. Other nations seem to do a better job in this area and I am not talking about China or Saudi!
Johnson County needs to stop living in the nineties. Lets start dealing with the real needs of real people in this county and the metropolitan area. Lets stop raising sales and property taxes especially for a domestic police state.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
WE NEED A GREEN DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR THE COUNTY
We need to rethink the current development plans, policies and the capabilities in the context of the opportunity of changing objectives for the largely idle construction industry. With an oversupply of very expensive, not very green homes and commercial buildings we need to rethink and retool the entire construction industry from top to bottom. Part of than change is in the direction is in offering affordable maintenance and green retrofitting for home owners and the owners of commercial and industrial property. Maintenance and the improvement of existing structures would be the new emphasis.
One obvious area is to sponsor and require superinsulation of currently heated and cooled structures. The need is enormous, the
opportunity is there and nothing will benefit both those owning and utilizing these properties more than an R-45 level of insulation. Of course obstacles to insulating should be removed. Insulation should not become an unaffordable bonanza for developers, just an honest job for thousands of construction workers who are willing to learn some new tricks. Nor should we underestimate the slashing of utility bills for the owners and tenants of these buildings. These are the kinds of change we
can finance and implement if we decide to go green and make it the policy of the state, the county and the cities in that county.
This is a great challenge yet it is something that needs to be done. All the hot shot construction folks who made bundles of money doing superficially efficient things will be missed by those who benefited. If those jobs are gone it is for reasons beyond the governmental policies that always facilitated this kind of superficially efficient economic growth and building development.
Another obvious reform is to severely limit any further suburban sprawl. Areas that are built up are already quite extensive and we should direct development toward these zones that are already developed. In short, most of the county that is currently not built up should remain for other, non residential, non-urban uses.
So maybe the County or State of Kansas can direct that certain zones be areas of restricted development prohibiting urban or suburban development in these areas. I am thinking, for example, about the recently annexed portions of Overland Park. Of course Overland Park could also make such green decisions. I don't know which level of state government has sovereignty over this, possibly all three, eh?
One obvious area is to sponsor and require superinsulation of currently heated and cooled structures. The need is enormous, the
opportunity is there and nothing will benefit both those owning and utilizing these properties more than an R-45 level of insulation. Of course obstacles to insulating should be removed. Insulation should not become an unaffordable bonanza for developers, just an honest job for thousands of construction workers who are willing to learn some new tricks. Nor should we underestimate the slashing of utility bills for the owners and tenants of these buildings. These are the kinds of change we
can finance and implement if we decide to go green and make it the policy of the state, the county and the cities in that county.
This is a great challenge yet it is something that needs to be done. All the hot shot construction folks who made bundles of money doing superficially efficient things will be missed by those who benefited. If those jobs are gone it is for reasons beyond the governmental policies that always facilitated this kind of superficially efficient economic growth and building development.
Another obvious reform is to severely limit any further suburban sprawl. Areas that are built up are already quite extensive and we should direct development toward these zones that are already developed. In short, most of the county that is currently not built up should remain for other, non residential, non-urban uses.
So maybe the County or State of Kansas can direct that certain zones be areas of restricted development prohibiting urban or suburban development in these areas. I am thinking, for example, about the recently annexed portions of Overland Park. Of course Overland Park could also make such green decisions. I don't know which level of state government has sovereignty over this, possibly all three, eh?
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