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A Petition for Just and Reasonable Property Assessment was signed by about 50 residents of Pulaski County, mostly from the Claytor Lake community. The group met at McGuire’s Family Campground on Tuesday evening.
Sherri McGuire, host of the gathering, said, "We’re taking a stand. We cannot live with the proposed costs of owning property in Pulaski County. So many of us have lived here for a long time; we’re not intimidated by developers and others that want to buy our farms and lake lands. If you can even see the lake, your property is being assessed at a very high level.” Laura Walter, a Claytor Lake resident, presented slide-projections of raw data about some aspects of real-estate evaluations and associated information. One point of interest was that there had been a 40 percent drop in sales in the last year in Pulaski County. A county resident reminded the group that the US Government had just released their consensus that stated, on average, real-estate in the USA has dropped in value by about 20 percent in the last year. One attendee said that developers were wanting the large tracts of farm lands, so that their infrastructure costs could be lower, integrating roads, water and sewer projects so that the cost-per-unit would be less. The grass-roots group hopes to expand the county residents’ involvement in the quest to attain reasonable real-estate taxes. Numerous concerns were raised about the recent appraisals of their properties. Some said that the Claytor Lake area was the most appreciated in value, while one county resident stated that not only did his Claytor Lake property increase in evaluation, but his farmland had also increased by 400 percent. Richard LaBire stated that he was concerned for local residents that were on fixed incomes. He cited an example of a man that had lived at Claytor Lake for most of his life, but feared having to move, due to his income/taxation ratio. “I’m trying to help him," LaBire said. "He just doesn’t know what his future is."“We’re working for them," said Sherrill VanDyke. "Our Board of Supervisors is not listening to us; they’re supposed to be working for us. They need to cut their budget. Should we ask them to resign?" The group concurred that they would advertise, gather more members, and be very pro-active in fighting for their concerns. Another group-meeting is being planned for early December. When asked if they had named their group, Sherri McGuire said, “We haven’t thought about that. We’re starting with our petition, and gathering more data from the county. We have to attend the Board’s December meeting. We need to change things before the February decision. Appeals can be made through March, but we want the increases to be moderated now.” EverythingNRV.com will update information about the ongoing efforts, as soon as it is available.
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