Kerry DoughertyGOOD NEWS. I think.
The Virginia Beach City Council may finally be ready to cinch the city's belt.
After years of profligate spending, next year's proposed budget is set to rise by only 2.1 percent, according to a story in Wednesday's paper.
This sudden attack of public parsimony is rooted in a scary and sustained downturn in the real estate market. It wasn't until residents' most solid investments got sucker-punched by the market that city leaders felt the need to put the brakes on spending.
The Resort City's proposed $1.76 billion budget, unveiled Tuesday, cuts corners by reducing raises from previous years for municipal workers, the Pilot reported. Under this plan, they will get a measly 1.5 percent pay raise - plus $1.9 million in bonuses - while school employees will see their salaries go up 3.5 percent.
This is terrible news for public servants. Still, there's no point looking to the private sector for sympathy. Pay increases out here in the cruel nongovernmental world have been anemic for several years.
The best news - at first glance, anyway - is that city honchos plan to freeze the real estate tax rate at 89 cents.
Before we break out the beer - no one's drinking champagne these days - Beach civic activist Reid Greenmun floats a sobering thought.
"This will not be a tax rate freeze," he insisted Wednesday. "It's a tax increase."
The only way the tax rate would be truly frozen is if property values went up less than 1 percent, he said.
Ah, yes. It's all part of the property tax shell game. During the crazy real estate run-up, city councils would crow about "cutting" the tax rate while skyrocketing property values meant that our bills still went up.
If real estate values continue to climb - unbelievable as it seems, Beach officials predict a 2.5 percent increase - keeping the tax rate static actually will mean another increase.
So, unless the value of your house in Virginia Beach remains the same or declines from last year, an 89-cent tax rate will result in a higher bill.
Sometimes good government types, like Greenmun, can be such spoilsports.
Despite meager raises for workers and a new boat tax that's sure to outrage local skippers, there is still a bit of the old it's-not-our-money spirit we expect from Virginia Beach politicians in the new budget.
Richard Quinn reports that the proposed capital plan includes $3.15 million for a fancy pedestrian bridge linking Town Center with Pembroke Mall.
Amazing, isn't it? Millions are able to hoof it across Times Square in New York City, but the few folks who want to cross Virginia Beach Boulevard in the city's manufactured downtown get a bridge.
Here's a brilliant idea, courtesy of Mr. Greenmun.
Tolls.
If user fees are the best way to pay for new highways, tunnels and bridges, they make perfect sense for footbridges, too.
"If people wouldn't be willing to pay to use the bridge," he said, "maybe it isn't needed."
There's a thought. And that's $3.15 million saved.
Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net
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I wouldn't be against that
I wouldn't be against that as long as no public money is used. If you guys want to buy the SportsPlex, and the TPC Golf Course and develop it with private money, I have no objection whatsoever. The city is going to collect taxes on whatever is built. As long as the private sector buys the land at the fair market value, pays for the roads to accommodate the projects, and takes ALL of the risks. I have no objection as long as public money is not put to risk or that the public is forced to subsidize or maintain it if the venture fails. It it doesn't fail, the investors get rich. I also have no objection to an MLS franchise as long as the franchise builds and pays for it's own facilities and roads and takes ALL of the risks. Taxpayers should not have to finance stadiums and parks for a MLS team that could bail out at anytime. The Mariners come to mind. As Ross Perot once said, "a good deal will sell itself". Right?
Well Keith, we have finally
Well Keith, we have finally agreed upon something. I totally agree we could sell the Sportsplex, and I believe that if this were packaged properly with surrounding land, that we could attract large real estate investors who would attract an MLS franchise, develop a town center around the Sportsplex, and create a town environment that would add an urban feel to the Princess Anne Commons. That has happened in Kansas City, Harrison, N.J., Salt Lake City, Houston, Denver, Dallas, and is planned in other major league soccer cities around the nation, and in new franchise cities like Philadelphia and Seattle that will join the league next year. We have a gem but not the vision to understand the asset we have. With the approval soon of the funding for the Southeastern Parkway and Greenbelt, this will be an incredible location for a regional facility, and with the partnership with the 19 field Hampton Roads Soccer Complex, immediately we would have a comlex that meets national and international standars. Great idea!
Well, sorry Reid; you are
Well, sorry Reid; you are math challenged as well. Fact is, some homeowners will get a tax increase, some won't. Most businesses will get a tax increase because the assessments went up much more for business property, but some won't. The only generally accurate statement for every owner of real property is that we will all, everyone, pay the same rate based upon the fair market value of the property. Now some, like the elderty, those of low income, or those who are disabled, may qualify for an exemption. But the rule is that every property owner pays the same rate based on the fair market value. Of course, you know that, but since you are in the opposition, you are trying to divide and conquer, to create as much hate and discontent as you can, so as a spokesman for the anti tax coalition, you would never admit that our system is fair, equitable, and just. That conclusion does not fit your political interest nor your ideology. Too bad for you your ideological rants keeps getting defeated at the polls.
Cutting the VB bugdet
Well, for starters, they could sell SportsPlex, The TPC Golf Course they paid a mint for, and the bridge that crosses Town Center to Pembroke Mall, the 1/2" addition to a swimming pool, and traffic light cameras. That would be a good start.
As for the real estate taxes, I will bet that mine will increase. One or the other needs to be decreased, either the assessment or the rate. Neither is going to happen.
Well, the bridge is needed. Kinda.
Virginia Beach had the good sense to build their "town center" at the intersection of eight and six lane, 45-MPH highways. One of the most trafficked and gridlocked intersections in the city before the project, where pedestrians have been known to be hit by cars without even leaving the sidewalk. I'd be reluctant to cross that intersection in an armored car.
Your comment comparing it to Times Square makes me think that you've never been to Times Square, or perhaps just not VB's town center. (The latter is understandable.)
Town Center is sort of like an exhibit at a zoo : we can drive by and see an approximation of how people actually live in a real-life, pedestrian friendly downtown area, knowing all along that it's an artificial creation, impractical for human living.
3.5 mil for a bridge seems pricey, but nothing comes cheaply in the land of the public-private partnership.
So Mike agrees with Kerry and I - the same rate is a tax hike
So Mike, thank you for agreeing that Kerry and I are correct. Keeping the tax rate the same as last year is a tax increase.
That is because the city informs us that despite the crashing housing market, somhow the assessments they are using still managaged to increase.
Curious, isn't it?
Well, of course, I have
Well, of course, I have always been able to do the math. You, on the other hand, always try to make political points with the uninitiated like Kerry, will condemn city council when assessments go up (never complimenting them for reducing the rate) or you will condemn them for the rate going up if they need to make up for cuts from the Commonwealth. So of course you try to win either way, and of course with columnists like Kerry, who eats your ideology for lunch, that is not very hard to do. Of course, as we know, setting the tax rate is a balancing act; you have failed miserably the one time you boasted to council that you could cut the budget by $50,000,000. When they asked you to do so, you punted, you failed to show. Why? Because your good friends in the taxpayers association realize that if you actually propose to cut schools, transportation, public safety, human services, or courts and justice, that you make enemies. Better to say you can do it than to actually demonstrate that you can't. Reid Greenmun; all show and no action. Enjoy your moment in the sun; it won't last long.
I love you too MIke
Good morning Mike, so nice of you to think of me. You made my morning. Lovely spring morning, isn't it?
BTW Mike - what "other side" is there? If your assessment increases and the city keeps the same tax rate as the year before - that is a tax increase.
Assessment times tax rate = what property taxes home owners pay.
Increase the assessment ~ homeowners pay more taxes.
There aren't "two-sides" to that truth. It is just math.
Two Jobs?
I continue to be amazed that a columnist for the Pilot can also serve as the chief spokesman for the Virginia Beach Taxpayers Organization. At least a reporter at the Pilot is required to consider other views; Kerry apparently is not even constrained by the principles of accurate journalism. Yes, I know she is a columnist, but to accept the views of Greenmun, Moss, Erb, Dean, and Murphy with no scrutiny nor analysis, and to publish their one sided views with no comment from those who know the truth of their comments, does a grave disservice to your readers. One thing I can compliment you on is your consistency; you regularly repeat their views word for word and have clearly succumbed to their siren song hook, line, and sinker. To me, that is an embarrassment that a columnist at an award winning newspaper could behave in such a fashion. Isn't your compensation at the Pilot enough that you have to work for another "newspaper"?