Minutes - 20060601 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

12 financial statement. He is in sympathy for all who spoke tonight. He was supposed to retire in 1990, but he is still working. He said that he meets with a lot of old people every morning and all he hears is taxes. He and his wife live on a fixed income of less than $25,000 a year. He asked John Link to publish the County income versus the budget. He said that he recently heard that the County was in the land buying business. He wanders if this is true. Chair Jacobs said that the County's income is in the budget document. Oscar Compton made reference to an article that bothered him. He has been in Orange County for 72 years and served on the school board for 12 years and 6 years as chairman. He said that he is very familiar with want and need. He said that he does not think that they can afford a lot of the things that are supposedly needs. He said that when John Link came up with a 7-cent increase, that was reasonable, but 16 cents is not reasonable. He said that one of his daughters works far the Department of Commerce in Raleigh bringing industry and tourism to the State. When he bought a trailer park in Yanceyville he asked her to bring same industry out there and she said that you couldn't bring industry to Orange and Caswell Counties because they are the two highest tax counties in the state. He said that they need to separate need from want. Robert Nichols lives in Cedar Grove and is a retired dairy farmer. He is 78 years old. He said that he has spent all of his life in Orange County except for the five years he was in the Navy and college. He said that he built his house 37 years ago at a cost of $25,440 and today this same house is valued at aver $200,000. He says that this is a big increase in this number of years. He pays taxes, but he also lives on Social Security and some savings. His Social Security is $852.50 a month and his wife also gets Social Security and they live on this. He has 172 acres of land that he wants to live on and not develop, and his County taxes were around $3,000 this year. The maximum amount that he can get for rent out of his property is $2,500. He said that he has bills to pay and he would still like to live in Orange County and he would like to keep the land, but he may have to sell it. This is happening to a lot of senior citizens in Orange County. He said that he voted against the district tax referendum. He said that the County is so educated now that they have to import people to do laborers work. He said that the reasonable thing is to go to the legislature and go upon the sales tax to fund the schools. He estimates that at least 35°I° of the people in Orange County do not own property and so the property owners have to pay for everything. He said that everybody ought to have to pay and the sales tax would be the answer. 4. Adjournment A motion was made by Commissioner Halkiotis, seconded by Commissioner Carey to adjourn the meeting at 9:18 p.rn. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Barry Jacobs, Chair Donna S. Baker, CMC Clerk to the Board