Say Anything Blog

Nice letter in the Herald yesterday.

EMERADO, N.D. — I read with interest a comment made by Lloyd Omdahl in the May 14 story, “Farm Bureau campaigns against Home Rule” (Page 1B).

Omdahl said there was not a great deal of concern over property taxes at the public hearings.

I attended the informational meeting on Home Rule Charter that Omdahl chaired at the Grand Forks County Office Building. I am now questioning if we were really at the same meeting where there were many questions on a sales tax as well as increased property taxes through consolidation of mill levies. I was one of the people who made comments about my concerns on further taxation.

There were many specific concerns on taxes addressed that evening. The answer given by Omdahl to most questions was, “I would hope that won’t happen”.

Not being comforted by the answers, I voiced my concern to the commission. With more powers, five people could lower my standard of living even further through taxation.

When my husband and I were first married, we made a decision that we would work hard, pay our taxes, live modestly when we were young so we could invest in our farm. Then when we were older, we could retire without having to worry about passing our farm on to another generation to cherish.

However, we didn’t count on all these escalating taxes that would erode the heritage we worked so hard to establish and protect. The decline in my standard of living has been through no action of my own or decisions that we made in our lives. The government has done this to all taxpayers, and we seem to have no recourse after these taxes are implemented.

Grand Forks County residents currently do have recourse on Home Rule. We have the option to vote no on the Home Rule ballot measure June 10. I intend to vote no, and I encourage other Herald readers to do the same.

Here’s what I’ve done on the issue in other posts.  Follow the links on the bottom.