A fair shake with accountability

Residents of Bonner County pay attention to your tax  statements especially your assessments. Your valuation is likely not to just.

Jerry Clemons feels he is above the Constitution. Don’t count on a fair shake. If his assessors cannot get onto your property at the time they choose, they will make no effort to contact you. They then use comparisons of other pieces of property they deem comparable to yours even though these comparisons may not be. It is at their convenience and their choice.

The assessors job is to put a fair value on your property to create revenue thru taxation that will pay for county services. Their job does not include crunching the numbers to pay for an out of control county budget lacking sufficient cuts.

Those of you having that have gone down a few thousand dollars should expect your county valuation to go up shortly. Some assessments have climbed a laughable amount this year. These assessments are making up the difference on the county budget. Jerry Clemons says that even though the national real estate trends are all devaluing, Bonner County is not. When property across the country is going down, ours is going up?

Real estate values were climbing at the beginning of the decade. About 2006, they leveled and started to fall. Jerry Clemons contends that a continued rise in real estate value of 300 percent since 2002 is justified.

Our elected officials are there to work for us, the citizens. The assessor’s office needs to be held accountable for unfair practices as do all positions of government It is unbelievable that these people we elect don’t have our best interests in mind.

GINNY DEANE

Sandpoint