Submitted
Published: March 17, 2008

Broadband question

Any person who gets their electricity from CVEC has probably received mailers describing at various times the BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) service they have been testing for several years, now. Their mailers also seem to imply that all CVEC customers would eventually be eligible for BPL.
Yet, a recent article in the Nelson County Times about the BPL service stated the following:
“Hill said the route they are working is where the grant requires them to concentrate, which is areas of health facilities, schools and major employers in the county.”
So, will BPL eventually be available for all CVEC customers? Or, should people who live in rural areas and who would like broadband service look for alternative services (i.e. satellite)?

Frank Applin
Gladstone

Not a good feeling

I don’t have a good feeling about this reassessment stuff. First, if a new tax rate of .38 per $100 of assessed value would be break even for the county then the advertised rate of .59 per $100 of assessed value is more than a 55 percent increase in real estate tax.
For me (and probably others too), the .59 tax rate will add $371.79 to my monthly mortgage payment and is a 264 percent increase. 
Even if the tax rate were adjusted to .38 my monthly mortgage payment will still go up by $189.34 and is a little over 134 percent higher than what I paid in 2007.
Second, when I went to the reassessment hearings on Jan. 14 I had a good case for why my property value was over estimated.  By chance, I had an appraisal completed in August of 2007.  The appraisal indicated a value that was $300,000 less than the recent reassessment.  That parcel was adjusted down by only $2,400. Appraisals exist because they are considered to be more accurate for a particular property than assessments. 
If the assessed values are allowed to stand I hope the board of supervisors will take into consideration that housing prices have dropped (many assessments in Albemarle County were adjusted down for 2008), unemployment is going up, fuel and food prices are rising rapidly, the economy is in a recession, and this is a very bad time to raise taxes.
I also wonder how much how much consideration will be given to the comments at the public hearing scheduled for April 8 (7:30 p.m. at the middle school auditorium).  Since tax statements are sent out by May 1, it doesn’t seem like there is much time left to make any thoughtful revisions to the county’s budget. 
If anybody is interested in getting organized to see what can be done please send email to and put due Nelson in the subject line.  Call me at 831-2825 if you don’t have access to email.  The more people that get involved the more likely we will be to accomplish something.

Buck Whitehurst
Schuyler

Wrestling with costs

The Nelson County Board of Supervisors has a task to wrestle with that will affect every household in our county.  The need to sufficiently fund our schools and our civil government is a given. The cost of these tasks will increase if the state government abdicates on its responsibility to meet its established commitments in these areas. And we all know the impact of increasing energy costs.
Equally important is the impact of increased taxes.  The proposed 59 cent tax rate is a 55 percent increase.  I cannot imagine any justification for this much change. What household in our county, our state, or our country has had this much income increase in the past year, or the past five years. The vast majority of wage earners in Nelson County must drive 50 to 100 miles per day and have received little or no increased compensation in recent years.
Escalating fuel costs are compounding this problem, daily.  Our county government has allowed virtually no new employment opportunities, other than increasing the number of county employees. Are the implications of actions taken by our government understood?
Our supervisors and all our government departments need to search for reductions in their budgets, not increases. The taxpayers of Nelson County cannot afford to become hostages of bureacratic wishes.

David S. Hight
Roseland