Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 22:57:50 -0400
From: Caroline Siverson
Subject: Response to “Chatham leads way” column
On July 16th Commissioner Brian Bock posted a link to a July 14th column published in the Chapel Hill News titled “Chatham leads way by getting out of way”. It is also featured on the Chatham County GOP website.
Mark Zimmerman, apparently a Chapel Hill/Durham realtor, has pitched in to promote the re-election of the Bock/Petty/Stewart team to the Chatham County Board of Commissioners. His “testimony,” however, adds nothing since he seemingly lacks personal knowledge of the facts he recites. He has simply parroted the State of the County Report issued by Bock/Petty/Stewart this spring, much of which has been found to be distortions of the fact
For example, the State of the County Report claims of 270 percent job increase in Chatham. But it ignores the fact that employment in Chatham declined from a high of 16,498 in 2008 to 13,880 in the third quarter of 2013. And the Report brags that 1,177 new jobs have been added but, unfortunately, 2,618 jobs were lost since 2008.
Zimmerman claims that there was capital investment of $250 million in Chatham since 2010, although he doesn’t give any source for this data. Even the County Report claimed only $140 million. And Furthermore, the Report was only able to claim that school operations had been increased by 20% by counting increases made by the prior Board of Commissioners and ignoring the reduction made by the current Board in their first year in office.
Zimmerman notes that the property tax rate has not been increased for four years. True, Bock and team retained the 62-cent rate that was in effect when they took office. Luckily, an expanding economy prompted by federal policies has produced a richer tax base and increased property tax revenues even without a rate increase. The economy would likely have expanded even more rapidly if additional federal stimulus measures had not been blocked by Republicans in Congress, but that’s another story.
It was the Republican “No Taxes Never” mentality that caused the commissioners to delay a property revaluation. A revaluation would have helped many homeowners who were paying too much property tax because their property had declined in value due to the real estate crash. But the Bock group didn’t want a revaluation because that would have required them to increase the 62-cent tax rate in order to stay revenue neutral, contrary to promises made during their 2010 campaign and not a popular political move at any time.
Zimmerman praises development plans for Chatham Park, but many worry that this mega-project threatens to destroy old Pittsboro, and that the lack of environmental safeguards imposed with its approval spells huge problems for the future.
Any Board would have supported the Chatham-Randolph mega-site project, but it has yet to land an industrial operation. Moreover, its prospects may be uncertain in light of the determination by General Assembly Republicans to destroy the public school system, a well-known factor in attracting the sorts of new businesses that will provide good-paying jobs and that are essential for the success of the mega-site.
Given the Republican-led disasters in both Washington and Raleigh, the Bock/Petty/Stewart team now seems embarrassed even to identify themselves as Republicans. They sign off in their current ad blitz not as Republicans, but as “common sense conservative commissioners.” The fall campaign will document the misinformation these Republicans (aka “conservative commissioners”) presented in the 2014 State of the County report, as well the facts regarding their many failings over the last four years.
Caroline Siverson