Albemarle TAX INCREA$E Town Hall: Earlysville (Monday, March 7, 2016)
Four Albemarle County residents, besides myself and an on-duty police officer, attended Democrat White Hall Supervisor Ann Mallek’s district meeting at Broadus Wood Elementary School in Earlysville on Tuesday night, March 7, 2016.
Here is a sampling of topics covered at what I prefer to call TAX INCREA$E Town Halls. These are not in any particular priority order.
Ann first reminded everyone of the March 9, 2016 Public Hearing on the possible banning of big trucks from Earlysville Road. It was obvious to me that Ann would like to see the Board of Supervisors (BOS) and eventually the Commonwealth Transportation Board remove heavy trucks from the portion of Earlysville Road from Rio Mills Road to Woodlands Road. “Big trucks on Earlysville Road,” said Ann, “have made the lives of the neighbors very challenging for many, many years.”
The staff report prepared for the Public Hearing includes the following findings:
• only 1.5% of the daily traffic on Earlysville Road is from vehicles with 3 or more axles.
• “the crash data does not appear to indicate that trucks are causing crashes along the corridor.”
• “staff has determined that this roadway is not residential in nature.”
Concern was expressed about trucks using Reas Ford Road as an alternate to Earlysville Road and also about the bad driving habits of some truckers. Ann said, “Some guys have gotten very cagey. They don’t have their names on their truck doors any more [in order to avoid identification].”
Regarding population growth in Albemarle County, Ann said: “I don’t see any way that super rapid growth is good for anything. I’m certainly not in favor, however, of saying we’re not going to have any more than 120,000 people here. That’s ridiculous.”
Ann was asked about how the public could provide comments on what qualities the County should look for in the next police chief since Chief Sellers will be retiring in June. She said she would ask Deputy County Executive Lee Catlin about this. The police officer in attendance said that the County’s Human Resources staff had already interviewed Police Department employees about this.
Ann said she would ask County staff to add information about median property values to the comparative tax rate information for Albemarle’s peer counties. Median property value information has been routinely left out of staff budget documents and presentations for years. The only true way to compare the cost of taxes in Albemarle with peer counties is to have information about both the tax rates and assessments. The full increase in taxes on a piece of property is the sum of the tax rate increase and the reassessment increase. To determine the dollar amount of the tax check a property owner has to write to Albemarle County, a property’s value has to be multiplied by the tax rate.
Ann was asked if the County is going to institute a stormwater fee on property owners. This is the fee more commonly refered to as a “rain tax.” She said that more information about this would be coming to the Board of Supervisors in May. She said there is a substantial number of people who would prefer to see such costs continue to be built into the property tax rather than being an add-on fee.
Ann was again critical of the high costs associated with the County’s Fire/Rescue Department. “Fire/Rescue has galloped in cost over the past several years,” she said. “I think we’re going to have to reign back the night time [career crews].” She was also critical of the more than one million dollars that was spent on remodeling the warehouse for the new Ivy Fire/Rescue station and the $3.2 million estimated price tag for a proposed ambulance station at Pantops.
Ann agreed with a member of the audience who said County staff should conduct its own efficiency study rather than spending tax dollars on a consultant to do so.
Regarding a possible bond referendum for capital projects, Ann said: “We’re no where near a decision on that.” At the March 2 BOS meeting, the consensus of the Board (without taking a formal vote, however) was to have County staff provide information yet this spring on how such a bond referendum might still be prepared and placed on the November ballot during the presidential election.
Finally, Ann agreed that the public, regardless of how many people are signed up to speak at a budget public hearing, should be allowed the normal three minutes of speaking time rather than having this reduced to two minutes as was done by the Board at its first budget public hearing on February 23, 2016.