Tonight’s Orange County commissioners meeting should be fascinating. The group Orange Tax Revolt reportedly will be on hand to ask the board to disregard the 2009 property revaluation due to economic turbulence. They say other counties have done it. This is the same group — 1,200 strong — that rallied last week as well. From the News & Observer:
Commissioner Barry Jacobs said he can relate to the taxpayers’ concerns because he saw his three-acre parcel in Hillsborough nearly double in value.
“When we had a chance to stop the process in the fall, the professional judgment of our staff was that our appeals were at about the same rate as previous revaluations,” Jacobs said. “Little did we know that four months later, things would have gotten steadily worse.”
Jacobs said he doesn’t think Rockingham and Stanly counties had the legal authority to throw out their revaluations. He said he expects a briefing by County Attorney Geoff Gledhill to address that issue at the meeting.
Yes, this revolt really IS happening in liberal Orange County.
