Taxes as "contributions" and other Albemarle-isms, fees, fines, and updates

Since when are taxes a “contribution?”

At least since yesterday when a new Internet-based “Budget Visualization Tool” went live off a link to the Albemarle government website. (See: http://albemarle.smartcville.com/.) The so-called “contribution” tracking tool for the County was made possible through a partnership with Smart Cville, a local non-profit whose stated mission is "the advancement of open data, civic innovation, and technology-driven solutions throughout local government."

Various online dictionaries define contributions as “a voluntary gift.” One dictionary identifies an archaic meaning of the word as “levy.”

“Contribution” as “levy” makes more sense. Try getting out of paying something levied on you.

Worse yet, try not paying your yearly contribution of taxes and fees to Albemarle County government. You’ll find out how quickly your tax bill’s interest and penalties pile up or how fast a notice of a Sheriff’s sale of your property is posted in a legal ad for failure to pay back taxes!

“Contribution” rather than “taxes?” Sounds like another non-transparent GovSpeak contribution from Albemarle’s taxpayer-paid, all-Democrat Board of Supervisors and their high-paid County Executive Tom Foley and his Staff.

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Some Albemarle residents who earn income from rental properties recently received rather curt and scary letters from the County Finance Department about unpaid business license fees they weren’t told about or assessed for going back decades. This important matter first came to light through an interview on WINA’s The Schilling Show.

Well, Wednesday night, it sounded like Albemarle Finance Director Betty Burrell apologized to the Board of Supervisors for “the language in the letter[s]” sent out to 135 private landlords who owed these RPO [Rental Property Owner] business fees. When Supervisor Ann Mallek (D, White Hall) referred to the “attack mode” style of communicating with such landlords, Burrell was quick to respond with “we don’t intend to attack your constituents or our customers,” but added “there is a small percentage of people who play ‘catch me if you can.’”

As part of an apparent solution to the whole testy issue, from now on any time a County department mails a notice to more than 100 of its customers, the wording in such letters will first be reviewed by the County Attorney’s Office and also by someone in Communications. Where that Communications department is or who this “Communications” someone is, I have no idea. However, based on recent journalistic and literary shortcomings in other written documents from Albemarle (such as the draft “Strategic Priorities”), it remains to be seen how clear such promised “plain language” wording will be in future mass mailings from the County.

Oh, and by the way, the Finance Department is going to continue to search for additional RPO business license scofflaws by going through more landlords' Schedule C, D, E, and F tax documents being made available legally to Albemarle County by the State Tax Department.

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On a separate business tax matter discussed and decided Wednesday night by the Albemarle Supervisors, the Board voted 4-2 to support the Finance Department in going after and collecting business license fees of $50 annually from non-Albemarle contractors who do work for customers living within Albemarle County. (The $50 fee is on those contractors billing between $25,000 and $100,000 of gross receipts in a year’s time.)

Supervisors Norman Dill (D, Rivanna) and Brad Sheffield (D, Rio) voted against the motion, indicating that there was a much broader discussion the Board needed to have about the entire spectrum of BPOL (Business and Professional License) taxation (that amounts to over $10.5 million annually) in Albemarle County.

Ironically, Sheffield voluntarily admitted — after the vote — that he recently fell victim to a 35 cent penalty himself for failing to pay his own BPOL tax on time.

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The CEO of the non-profit Jefferson Area Board for Aging made an unexpected appearance at Wednesday night’s Albemarle Board of Supervisor’s meeting and spoke during Public Comment about layoffs last week at JABA. Marta Keane said all the right things about wanting to make sure Albemarle County, one of JABA’s biggest and most generous funders, heard about JABA’s "belt-tightening" and "right-sizing" officially from her before hearing it out on the street.

However, Keane was several hours late on her announcement.

I had heard about the JABA layoffs 29 hours earlier just by the coincidence of being at an open, public meeting where a few current and recently released JABA employees were in attendance.

Being a JABA volunteer myself, I e-mailed Keane with my frustration about hearing this difficult news “out on the street” before hearing it officially from JABA.

In her 3-minute message to the Supervisors last night, Keane mentioned no names and no specific positions that were cut at JABA, just that it was painful to do, was an elimination of support staff rather than direct-to-client staff, and that remaining staff would be “doubled up” on the work load.

'JABA provides services to approximately 13,000 seniors in the Central Virginia area.

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A couple updates related to some previous posts on my Whatever Albemarle blog:

1) State Board of Elections member Dr. Clara Belle Wheeler of Albemarle County has confirmed that it would be illegal for the Albemarle Board of Supervisors to post inside their voting precincts a chart of school construction projects that a bond referendum would include if voters passed it. The Albemarle Supervisors want a majority of voters to approve a $35 million financial tool and its attendant tax increase on November 8.

In early June, Supervisor and Board Chairwoman Liz Palmer (D, Samuel Miller) suggested posting a chart on the INSIDE walls of each polling place in Albemarle County so that voters could see what their YES votes would buy by voting YES.

In her reply to my skeptical query about Supervisor Palmer’s bond issue advocacy suggestion, Dr. Wheeler wrote, in part, the following:

“The Code of Virginia prohibits any and all campaigning inside the polling place. The local Electoral Board will publish the exact wording of any referendum exactly as it appears on the ballot. No further explanation of any referendum is permitted. You are correct.”

and

“I think that the most important part of my responsibility as a member of the State Board of Elections is to help educate the public in matters of elections. Ignorance is not bliss.”

You can read my original post about Supervisor Palmer’s erroneous suggestion here: http://gwg1949.wix.com/whateveralbemarle#!Time-to-get-EDUCATED-about-ADVOCACY-in-Albemarle-County/vek4s/574f1e390cf209161af6dc67.

2) You may remember that I was very critical of the lack of definitions and explanations and overall poor writing when the Board of Supervisors approved a draft of its new “Strategic Priorities” in June.

See the following posts in my Whatever Albemarle blog:

June 14 post: Feedback — as requested. Answers — also requested.

http://gwg1949.wix.com/whateveralbemarle#!Feedback-%E2%80%94-as-requested-Answers-%E2%80%94-also-requested/vek4s/576002210cf235a69b21448a

June 22 post: Ah cain’t hardly weight.

http://gwg1949.wix.com/whateveralbemarle#!Ah-caint-hardly-weight/vek4s/576b1b960cf27c385a73d015

Well, I ended up using the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to request any public documents that might help me — and all Albemarle residents — read and understand what the hell the Supervisors had been talking about and their Staff had written in their allegedly transparent, plain language “Strategic Priorities.”

What I eventually got back from Assistant County Executive Lee Catlin was the following statement ten times:

“There is no existing agency record available with this information.”

Actually, I was pleased to receive this ten-fold confirmation to my various requests for definitions or explanations of terms and other over-generalized verbiage in the Board’s “Strategic Priorities."

It was confirmation that the Board members, the County Executive, and his Staff really don't appear all that eager to define terms, explain what they’re talking about, speak or write in plain language, or govern all that transparently. And they have no public records to prove it.

"Ah cain’t hardly weight" again to read the final version of the County’s “Strategic Priorities.”

Let’s hope it comes with a glossary.