Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Augusta: One citizen plans to fight against outrageous reassessment increases

Francis Chester is a straight-talking farmer who just happens to be an attorney ... and he's mincing no words in saying he is livid about his real estate reassessments.

From today's Waynesboro News Virginian:
Reassessment records show that property Chester owns in both Churchville and Swoope increased from 73 percent to 233 percent.

“The assessment is supposed to be done on market values as of Jan. 1. The way the market is today there is no way you could sustain those values,’’ Chester said.

Over the next month, Chester plans to circulate in stores, libraries and other public places petitions for his rollback idea. He is seeking volunteers to help with the effort.

“I want to get as many people as possible,’’ he said. “You’ve got to have a lot of warm bodies, a lot of people to back you up on this.”

Chester plans to ask for a meeting with Augusta County supervisors in early March. If that fails to produce results, Chester said he then will take his case to Augusta County Circuit Court.
People in the community are hurting.

Tonight ... Augusta County Board of Supervisors meeting ... 7:00 pm ... Government Center in Verona.

1 comment:

Richard said...

I would volunteer for this. Once he's ready, let us know.

The weather is crap out here and VDOT didn't touch our roads (barely made it home due to the ice on the road), but I still plan to go to the BOS meeting tonight.

I still kinda feel that this is a loosing battle because it's looks like the only thing we can do is get the tax rate lowered to equalize it. The problem I have with this is that the county will still be saying that our property is worth way more then it actually is. I don't see values being anything close to true for many years. Also, what's going to keep them from just hiking up the tax rate next year.