“We just want fair treatment,” said property owner Norris Sexton in an address to the commis-sioners during their work session. “This is not just a tax base: these are people.”
He said the group of about 25 taxpayers was not at the meeting simply to complain but to work with county leaders to try to find a solution. “We really want to get involved,” he said, “ but this is just unbearable … There’s got to be a better way to do this than putting the burden on the property owners in this manner.”
Commission Chairman Alvin Long encouraged those with grievances to voice them before the county’s board of tax assessors.
“I’m not going to go into specifics,” he said. “I’m not an assessor.”
Commissioners did stay for about an hour after their regular meeting ended to discuss taxpayers’ concerns.
Also during the Aug. 18 meeting of the Gordon County Board of Commissioners, board members:
* Approved a bid award of $157,030 for a burn trailer for the county fire department to Fire Training Structures of Phoenix, Az. A training fee of $3,250 was included in the bid amount. The department received a Federal Fire Act Grant from the Department of Homeland Security in the amount of $163,577 in April. The difference of $6,547 will be used for related equipment. Federal monies pro-vided in the grant amounted to 80 percent of the total amount; the county is required to provide 20 percent.
* Approved a bid award in the amount of $23,688 to Prater Ford for a new E-350 inmate transport van for the sheriff’s department.
n Approved a bid award in the amount of $23,551 to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency for a 2010 Chevy Tahoe to be used by the sheriff’s department as a patrol vehicle. County Adminis-trator Randy Dowling said funds for this purchase and for the inmate transport van were transferred from money from the inmate housing fund built into the current budget to pay for other counties to house inmates from Gordon before the new jail was completed. All of these debts have been set-tled, he said, leaving about $250,000 available.
* Approved a contract with the city of Plainville for the county board of elections to conduct election processes for Plainville for the upcoming municipal elections in November. City Attorney Suzanne Hutchinson said the city would reimburse the county for the cost incurred.
* Approved the renewal of a mutual aid agreement with Gilmer County for emergency management services.
Commissioners hear taxpayer concerns again
you might want to go to www.gordoncounty.org
GIS maps,property search,type in the name,click
on property card. EVERYONES property card is
public record and you can compare % of increase
to your own...you might be surprised at what you find :(
The "logic" used was that the county had hired an outside firm to assess the properties in Gordon County at a value that more closely reflected bank-appraised values, and that the "net" tax liability for each taxpayer would not change dramatically. If this is true, why did we spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars to re-appraise values that, in the end, may not have an impact on the amount of tax revenue generated??
The responsibilty falls with the commissioners and the assessors, and they should be held accountable
All you hear from them is "we hired this other company to do the assessments". Someone in the office okayed the selection of the company and I'm sure the county lawyer signed the contract. The office is responsible for the work of their contractors. Obviously no one in the tax assessors office reviewed the work of the contractors. If this situation doesn't get fixed, the employees in the tax assessors office should be fired.
Where is the firm that was hired to do these assessment? Why have they not been brought back into the county to correct their work? The taxpayers in the county paid them to do a job right and they have not. They made huge assumptions on values of property without looking at the actual market conditions. I think the taxpayers in the county should demand the county lawyer sue them for failure to complete their work.
But where does this all start? The resposibility for this fiasco is with the county commissioners!