MASON CITY – The Mason City Conference Board met Tuesday and voted to fund a $1 million dollar project conducted by the Mason City Assessor to appraise all residential and commercial property in Mason City.
The Conference Board is made up of three entities: The entire City Council and Mayor; the Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors; and the Mason City School Board.
Only one Mason City citizen attended the meeting and voiced a concern.
Tim Latham, who owns about 40 properties in Mason City, asked the board about hiring a full-time appraiser in the assessor’s office instead of spending $1 million on an outside company to accomplish the work.
Mason City Assessor Dana Naumann told Latham that one worker could not accomplish all the work in a timely fashion, although her office is adding another worker.
Naumann explained that the project is needed because many properties in Mason City are under-valued and over-valued and in the interest of fairness, the project should be done.
The project will cost the average Mason city taxpayer $55 over the course of 5 years.
Watch video of meeting:
COMMENT REMOVED BY NIT STAFF
If she smokes pot, she probably makes more of a fair evaluation. Not concerned about trashing other people over pot anymore. That ship sailed. This is 2013.
It’s not about pot. It’s about shitty character.
OK, then don’t even bring up pot. Pot is the best cancer arrest agent we have.
Ok. Great. Then I guess she won’t get cancer. The point is…she is an elected official that is not qualified to do the job she is doing or getting paid for. She does illegal drugs…which, I don’t care if they are cancer preventive or not…they are illegal. She also partakes in illegal sexual acts. I have proof that she is mentally unfit for this position and proof that she ‘worked her way up the ladder’…and I’m not talking professionally.
Your public servants need more money (as always) you will see at least a 25% increase over the next 4 years – bets being taken at Jo’s casino – they skrewed us with the same BS a few years back – up 30%. YEP YEP.
TRUTH – you will mostly be all pizzed off – NO tax increase but but you will be charged 20 bucks per year for the next 5 years to pay this company – We Had this done in worth county – taxes up about 25% over the last 4 years – someone else is getting casino money – not the averge private schmuck. OH YEA -forgot to tell you -you dissagree with your new appraial? We had to confure with the hired schmuck company that did it – assessors office sat back and laughed – No fault of theirs and no skin off their azz- These public servants have more tricks up their slevees than that fat azz running N.K.
Let me understand this…the Globe thinks the city is spending one million dollars to get valuations that translates into lower taxes for the people and less revenue for the city?
Who do I call a flat out LIAR when this doesn’t happen?
Most of the city council was not there and it was perfectly fine for Janet to show up late. (Thank you NIT for proving that fact by showing the clock in the video.)
At the company I work for, if you are not on time for a meeting, the door is closed and locked the minute the meeting starts. If you are late, too bad, there is no need to disrupt a meeting after it starts with all of your excuses.
You are SO RIGHT! The Globe ran an article but would not let me comment. Their article was such BS, saying that most people’s property taxes would go down. How stupid do they think we are??? Obviously, these re-evaluations will cost us more, even though our property values have gone DOWN over the last 5 years or so. They will recoup their million $ and then increase their revenue or they wouldn’t be pulling this crap!
I was looking at RE residential listings for MC and quite a few of the listings are below assessed value. I would think that assessments would HAVE to go down once the properties sell, or the buyer could protest the assessment and win.
I think Robin is texting!
This feels like to me to be a case of 3 Foxes in the Hen House!
This appears to be government coming at you and not from you. The idea is to raise valuations in order to recoup the 1 million expense and then have enhanced cash flow from the taxpayers after that.
The trouble is that no one in government is rewarded for saving money. They are rewarded by increasing it’s size and scope.
Mason City is a shrinking community according to the census and the reason is simple, although most of you will never be able to understand it in your lifetimes. What kind of young person would ever choose to live with people cruel enough to jail a cancer patient for using pot? It’s really that simple. It displays hate and the majority of the population in the US is not like this anymore. It’s a certain narrow mindedness that drives people away.
@another brick – A very good post. Yet I think that MC is also shrinking because there are no good jobs available and our city leaders continue to put money in a downtown that is, sorry to say, a hopeless cause. Plus I think that MC is just a down sized version of the sequester. If the cityleaders cut back on taxes or cut personnel, the people will find that, guess what, the city will continue to function. And eventually the people will realize the inflated budgets and excess personnel are something we can actually live without. Dreams are fine. But we still have to live in the real world.
Indeed a great post!
I know this was an election issue for the County this past November.
To bad the voters don’t understand what these people are really trying to do.
They claimed they’ve held the taxes, but fail to inform the people that they are going to get the extra money by doing just this-raising your valuations.
And don’t let today’s Globe article make you think that they will go down.
Bet my bottom dollar we all will be paying more again!!
@brick-they may think it is a great post and I would agree that part of it is. But, you had to bring pot back into it didn’t you. Let me tell you something. You druggers are a dredge on society. You can’t hold a job (who would hire a drugger) that is going to steal anything that isn’t nailed down to support their habit. You bust up tooling and product because you are stoned all the time. You are in the emergency room or free doctors (at our expense) you don’t pay taxes (can’t do that when you don’t have a job or a home because you spend every dime you have on drugs. Live on welfare (again, can’t hold a job). Have illegitimate kids all over the place because you are so stoned you can’t get a rubber on. Oh yeh, fill up our prisons because you are not smart enough to stay off illegal substances. Yes indeed, you people are pillars of the community and we should all feel sorry for your stupid a##.
@Republican – Also a good post. Yes, they’ve held taxes. But they are going to have to make up that money somewhere. I’m sure you remember that adage, “There is no such thing as a free lunch”? Welcome to the Mason City Conference Board.
Bend over folks, its coming, even though you can not sell your home for anywhere near what its going to be appraised at!
Where was the decrease in the last 5 years when the housing market sank?