Virginia Beach City Council ponders taxes, fees

The best refutation of your view that Will Sessoms won because citizens supported his campaign financially and by voting for him was the election some thirty years ago in which Ms. Ann Gemenez from Rock Church spent just about exactly the same amount, that is, $8.00 per vote, and lost so badly neither she nor her husband ever considered local elective office again. I certainly do not deny that many citizens from all over this city and from all walks of life, donated to Will's campaign. They, like me, thought it really was that important for the largest city in this Commonwealth to have competent political leadership. To suggest that Will's views were not well known, it patently false; he won because he was able to oust a long term incumbent who needed to leave.

Well ALS, you should know by now that Mr. Barrett just cherry picks the areas that he wants to respond to. He can't refute the rest of what you said. That said, I am amazed that Mr. Barrett will chastise me because it was the will of the voters in VB that rejected the lie (and it was a lie) on the ballot for light rail in 1999 because the word STUDY was NEVER in the ballot question and was NEVER the true intent, and of course the will of the people to elect the same republicans to the house of delegates. It's a different ball game if HE doesn't agree with the will of the voters. I have accepted that the fact Will Sessoms is mayor and I BELIEVE his election was bought and paid for by special interests. As long as his candidate wins, it's the will of the people and in the public interest. If it is not, then that candidate was elected by Grover Norquist anti-tax, anti-christ less than 16% of the vote boo bird zealots. And that goes for their cat too!

Will Sessoms spent well over $600,000 or about $8.50 cents a vote and he still only received 38%. John Moss spent 4% of the amount Will spent for Maypor and he received almost half the votes. Also Me Sessoms ran 8 full page ads in the Beacon which he called his number one priority was to shift the disproportionate tax base. Mr Sessoms simply replicated the exact exact same mission of John Moss.

If you were genuine and truthful you would have attempted to refute my observations. You quickly changed the subject & introduced content that has little to do with the issue.

Well Keith and ALS, I wouild say it is you who simply refuse to seek the truth. I am amazed that you dismiss the will of the voters, as expressed in the last election, in which they clearly and with great numbers, defeated the extremism expressed by John Moss. His principles and his positions were well known and discussed during the campaign. His draconian cuts which included firing every blue collar worker of the city and the schools, simply removing major departments that provide services and programs that the citizens use and want, essentially resigning from our role in the region and declaring that we will be a parochial jurisdiction that cares nothing about our region, these ideas were clearly expressed. Frankly, as you can tell from reading this forum, these views are still held by the anti tax, anti government zealots who populate these pages. They represent about 16% of the voters; you either deal with that, or your posts will continue to be popular herein but essentially worthless to civil dialogue.

Today's word is B O H I C A. Say it, live it, be it. The CoVB is not comfortable until every tax paying citizen is bent over so money spills from our collective pockets. B O H I C A - Nuff Said.

If they need more money thats fine. Just cut everything by 15%, no exceptions; salaries, education, personnel manning levels all departments, I'll bet not many of the ones left will opt out of a job. And if they do hire someone who can do the job cheaper. This outragious spending for the future, for right now, has to stop.
Citizens will eventually quit asking for more expensive services. complaints will become overwhelming, but it has to happen, no ifs, buts, or hows.
You will need to understand "The more services and social programs you want the more you are going to pay."
Is smaller class size the answer, I did alright in school and we had 30+ to a class. What we didn't have was a school administration with so many that never see a student. Let's cut back there too. In fact lets start there.

Yes Mike, I do live in Virginia Beach and my real estate tax assessment STILL went up, even though houses in my area sat for sale empty. I have been here since 1999. Only once (in the year 2000) there was no increase in my assessment. It has gone up each year since then. The dirt is worth more than the house now. And of course you tout the same "sky is falling" when it comes to our roads that the grass is up so high you can't see the signs, so don't go there. That is rubbish too. And we still hear you beat the same dead horse about John Moss and the less than 16% of the vote. Yet we dare not draw any parallels if a republican wins an election in the HOD. You know which side your bread is buttered on Mike. And so do we.

If you were genuine and truthful you would have attempted to refute my observations. You quickly changed the subject & introduced content that has little to do with the issue.

But now you have to resort to your ridiculous 16% analogy. This represents a campaign that spent only 4% of your candidates massive expenditures of over $600,000+ and still received only 38% of the vote! He than replicated John's primary goal to change the one sided tax base and ran 8 full page ads in the Beacon to emphasize what he called his primary goal.. Incidentally, you must feel pretty good knowing the referendum will produce 84% in support of light rail. Isn't that your claim?

Propoganda machine? You mean the truth machine. Fact is, I would never expect to win even a plurality on this forum. But of course, those who express the "chicken little, the sky is falling down" perspective had an excellent chance to elect their chosen candidate, John Moss, last time around. Problem is, even though I suspect most of those herein showed up to vote, John got less than 16% of the vote. Now why do you think that was the case? Well frankly, most of our citizens actually enjoy the quality of life they have at the Beach. They supported the school modernization program. They supported city subsidies of the state in order to keep class sizes small, cops on the beat, sheriffs on the job, and city clerks to run the court system. The draconian cuts proposed by John and his chief ally Ben Krause, which included firing all city and school blue collar workers to replace them with government contractors, fell flat on its face at the polls. The same will happen again.

Mike, sure looks your propaganda machine is clearly not receiving any traction. I suggest you stop with the relentless hype. You can recite as many of your inflated opinions as you like - You jus't don't get to use your own facts! First of all the City is required to determine the assessed value based on comp sales. If the prices escalates Council is required to adjust the tax rate so it does not exceed 1% of the previous years increase. Secondly, City spending is off the wall. City spending has accounted for a monumental $3 billion of debt. Both in principal and interest paybacks and long term debt of about $1.7 billion. . . just in this decade & thats not all
Incidentally, the tax rate was dropped by 27% but the average real estate tax rose 120%. Not a very equitable transition. Fact is we need to chop the tax rate and cut the outragious and massive subsidies to guys like you. The budget increased by 87.5% and you believe that it is appropriate to further increase the rates with zero population growth and a 6000 student reduction? Secondly, the tax base is 85 /15. Commercial has not increased except microscopically. The fact is some of your special interest pals are not ev

Since 2000 the City Manager has enjoyed MASSIVE windfalls in increased taxes collected from Beach families. City Council and the City Manager went on spending sprees and also ran up MASSIVE debt to fund so-called "economic development" "investments". Bonds, bonds, and more bonds. Borrow and spend. Has the tax rate been allowed to remain the same as it was automatically lowered due to increases in assessed values on our homes, our tax rate would be far lower than 89 cents per $100. The City budget has skyrocketed and now that the housing bubble has burst, the City Council needs to direct the City Manager to restore our city to the 2001 budget. We managed just fine in 2001. Bloat and debt. Too many millions "invested" on "projects" that failed to lower our net taxes. For starters the light rail TOD scam needs to be abandoned and the purchase of the NS ROW ($10M) and the Circuit City ($5M) property needs to go away. We simply cannot afford light rail and its feeder bus system.

Keep your shirt on
Submitted by Mike Barrett on Wed, 10/07/2009 at 8:54 am.
" A recession is good for us now and then. "

10% unemployment, record home foreclosures....is this guy bizarre or what?

our favorite blogger choose no response to rusb757 comments

Well Keith, for one, I have no idea who you are, if you live at the Beach, and if you do, what happened to your assessment in the last few years. Clearly, from the article, the average assessment did go down last year, and since the tax rate stayed the same, the average real estate tax bill went down as well. There is your fiscal dividend, to live in a city with the lowest tax rate, where the assessment actually went down, and you paid less taxes yet received the highest level of service of any city in Hampton Roads. And that is a predictable result of a city that has invested in itself with projects that produce revenue; the town center, the new convention center, the amphitheater, road improvements that have stimulated commercial development, and new and expanded hotels. If your strategy had been followed, that is, draconian cuts, the tax rate would have gone way up as citizens left the Beach, values went down, businesses closed, and residential had to make up the difference.

Well Mike, with visionaries like you, it's a small wonder that the folks who live here aren't flat broke. You keep touting things like return on investment. I NEVER see any return. It seems to most of here that the city and the developers are the ones who get THEIR return and that we are forced (via higher taxes) to give it to them. When do I see my return Mike? It appears then when these faclilites make money, the council just figures out what to spend it on, rather than save it. The real estate tax rate was lowered only because the assessments went through the roof. I would have probably gone bankrupt if the rate had not gone down. My assessments are up 35%. So no bargain there. So Mike, when you stroke that next check to Jim Spore, give him a peck on the cheek for me too huh?