Have you ever wondered if more people could afford to live in Chatham County if the people we elected didn’t keep raising taxes and making it more expensive to live in this county?
We had a huge 7% property tax increase in 2019.
The news about the huge tax increase was buried in a county press release that claimed that “Chatham County Commissioners Adopt FY20 County Budget.” (Chatlist # 6438)
What the headline should have been was “Chatham commissioners’ 7% property tax hits affordable housing hard”
Chatham County citizens were not happy with the sizable tax increase. (See here)
Now, our Chatham County commissioners and the local Chatham Habitat are hoping for yet another tax increase. This year they want an increase in our local sales tax.
Darrell Butts, a budget analyst with the county manager’s office, told the board in February 2019 that the sales tax increase would have brought in $1.6 million for the county if applicable in 2017 and slightly less last year. “It’s a dependable source of revenue, fairly dependable,” Butts said. “It’s not one-time, it’s going to be there year-after-year.”
Translation for Chatham County citizens: “We can suck another $1.6 million out of you every year. Forever.”
Habitat claims on their web site ( http://chathamhabitat.org/advocacy/ ) that they are NOT advocating a tax increase.
How insincere can they get? How gullible do they think the good citizens of Chatham County are. Read through the page and you’ll see that the Chatham Habitat of Humanity is basically saving. “We, at Habitat humanity say we don’t advocate another tax increase, but we do want to get a piece of that annual tax if it happens [wink]”
Just take a look at the email template they suggest you send to the commissioners on the web site.
BTW, instead of using the email template that habitat has provided on their web site, http://chathamhabitat.org/advocacy/ go ahead and send your own email to the commissioners and let them know how you feel about another tax increase.
Remind them (in a polite fashion) that raising $1.6 million from Chatham residents just because they can does not make it right.
Join me in boycotting the Chatham Habitat for Humanity organization –
Don’t shop in the ReStore
Don’t donate goods to the Restore.
Don’t donate any money or attend any Habitat fundraisers.
Stop volunteering in any way at all (Find other organizations that you can help out, that don’t want your taxes to be raised)
Visit their facebook page and click on the “leave a message” button and let them them know you don’t approve of their “advocacy” for another tax increase.
Call them at (919) 542-0794 and tell them it is inappropriate for a “non-profit” to advocate for tax increases.
Tell your family and friends about your choice. Tell them to tell their friends.
Habitat claims on their web site that they are NOT advocating a tax increase.
They also include a link to to a NC Article 46 map with the implication that “hey look at all the surrounding counties around Chatham that have approved the increased sales tax.”
When I look at the map I see something else instead. I see that about 73 NC counties put the tax up for a voter referendum and only 31 counties approved the tax increase. Guess most NC citizens have a lick of sense.
The poor widow Virginia Penley claims that most of the surrounding counties went with an increased sales tax. I guess she failed to take a look at the bigger picture. Most North Carolina counties said “NO” to a sales tax increase.
Here’s an idea; let make Chatham County a truly sustainable county and live within our fiscal means.
David
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 06:23:53 -0500
From: hamchatcounty
Subject: 73 NC Counties had sales tax increase referendums, only 31 counties approved tax increase