Gary, Jim and Lucy Go Off on Property Taxes

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Maybe pilling out to worry about property taxes relief instead
of the stupid bedbugs.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I just got my valuation yesterday. Mine only went up
sixty two.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Thousand, five hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
How did yours do?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Jim Gary?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Ridiculous? Yeah, I haven't. I haven't got it. I've seen mine.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
I thought they came out in January. Are they revaluing now?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Is it like? Is it? Are they doing it twice
a year now because I'm paying? Maybe they do it
now and then it goes into effect in January. I
don't know. I haven't. I haven't seen anything yet. Then
here's another one.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Good morning, kfab listening audience, and I'm sure everybody got
their beautiful, beautiful envelope from the Douglas County Assessor's Office yesterday.
If not, you could be looking forward to that. I
leave in the Handscomb part Dinkers Bar area and my

(01:03):
appraise value went from two hundred thousand to two hundred
and ninety two thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Please Lord, Well, it's time for a tax revolt.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I'm we're getting that.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
This is this is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, did you get yours?

Speaker 4 (01:20):
I haven't got it yet, But listening to this, I
don't want it.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, the full brides won't do anything. I mean, you know,
let's be real, it won't do anything. Pillin has tried, Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
But even what he has tried, how much would that
have affected any single person? Very?

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Very well, John, what they do at his in his
in his opening salvo, the plan was to essentially eliminate
local property taxes for funding schools, which would have dropped
your bill by fifty percent. Yes, that didn't work. He said,
the state will pick this up. And in order to
do that, we have to change our tax structure and

(01:55):
start applying some sales taxes to the six billion in exemptions.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
That went nowhere.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Because I don't think these people really truly appreciate just
how big a problem it is.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
They must not. They must not.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
They fully understand if you were why why wouldn't they care?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
You think that? Why would they pay? Property debate? Unanswered question?

Speaker 4 (02:22):
I mean position of power they get to keep it.
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, I mean, if you're forced out of your house,
you kind of care, don't you.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
They've come close. The challenge has been about two or
three Republicans that won't vote to close argument and debate
on bills and then you go to a simple majority vote.
But you've got to have thirty three and he hasn't
been able to get thirty three Republicans to agree on this.
And I don't know how many different ways you can

(02:52):
explain it to them and say, our state is not
big enough. We don't have enough people to be able
to carvout exemptions for this many folks.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
We all have to be a part of them.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
On sales tax man, Yeah, on sales tax because we
don't have enough people paying income tax. We don't have
enough people buying things to raise sales taxes. We're giving
away a lot of state sales taxes and tiff and
that means schools have to be funded by property taxes.
And property taxes are driving people off of them the

(03:24):
arms and ranches and out of their home.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Lucy, you talk about the revolt, I think what it is,
and it may be coming. We need to go out there.
We talked about this couple of weeks ago. Let's all
get clipboards. We're going to go out there and get
signatures for an absolute lid on evaluate percent increase every year.
That's it. Yeah, because they're not going to do anything. Folks,
I'm telling.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
You, if they're not going to do anything under this governor,
they're not going to do anything.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
I think your best bet at this point, if at
all possible, even if it's just across the border, I
think you need to start seeing a mass lead.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Of this state to wake up it's happening.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
We can't afford.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
But Lucy, that won't wake them up.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Well, they won't have the money.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Though.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
The issue is people are that have the means are
putting up primary residences in South Dakota, Texas, Arizona, Missouri,
and Wyoming. And they are doing it because taxes are
so much lower there. They're here part of the year,
but their primary residence is there, which means that they

(04:31):
don't pay income tax here. Data are not subjected to
the taxes that the residents are. But to me, they're
subjected to property tax if they many cases, they rent.
But the issue is this, And we can mess around
on all sorts of fronts, and we've talked about this
and we will continue to We're not going to stop

(04:52):
talking about it, but it boils down to this, given
the demographics, the geography, and the reality, we we have
to begin to tax exempted sales, and we have to
put a cap on valuation increases and levey increases, and
they have to be hard caps that cannot be messed
with without a sixty percent vote of the people. Now,

(05:14):
either we do that or this problem will not go away.
We can sit around and nibble on the edges and
talk about this little thing here and this little thing there,
it will not change until the state, the forty nine
fulbrights and the governor say, two cities like Omaha and Lincoln,
we are not going to allow you to increase the
levee by more than this much every year. And if

(05:37):
that means you have to tighten your belt, that means
you got to tighten your belt.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
You got a text from a neighbor lives about a
block away. Yeah, so I'm really looking forward to open
on my mailbox. Yeah, got my valuation. Here's the text.
Got my valuation up? Ninety vaults revolt? Where's that clipboard?

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Man?

Speaker 4 (05:58):
What about these new people coming into live here in
all these beautiful, the big new sky rises that we're
going to get all these new people with a streetcar.
These people are not going to buy property.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Now, No, they're not.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
They're not gonna and if anybody thinks, if we have
to convert the five hundred million worth of property right
now in the footprint and the envelope of the streetcar
into four billion, which is the only way this thing pays,
the only way that streetcar gets paid for by tiff.
If under the current system that property goes from worth
five hundred million to four billion, somebody's got to be

(06:29):
in those buildings.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
They jump there a Rosie