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Show , f ' f sat-' k- ' carnsETj ; ' Si r-n ;; ' i r--i f ; ; :f-i iT !." : . i : r - j ; - i (I h ; i J : irr-.: ' -H f . i ri i, L J t .1 I " ' Cedar Hills Lowers Taxes For Third Time in Four Years by Harlow Clark The first time Cedar Hills opted to lower taxes one resident resi-dent called Council Member Ken Kirk a liar because his property tax bill had risen instead in-stead of falling. When the city voted June 22 to lower taxes for the third time, Kirk explained that the city is not the only taxing tax-ing entity to appear on the property prop-erty tax bill, which also includes the school district, county, and others. The County Auditor's certified certi-fied tax rate for 201 1 is .003 195, that is, .0011999 for General Operations, and .001196 for Interest In-terest and Sinking FundBond. Cedar Hills chose a lower rate of .003153, with the rate for Interest In-terest and Sinking FundBond the same as the county's, but the rate for General Operations dropping to .001957. Mayor Eric Richardson explained that the county taxes on 55 percent of a property's assessed as-sessed valuation, so for a property prop-erty assessed at $200,000 the county's certified tax rate applied ap-plied to $110,000 (55 percent) would give a tax of $351.45, while the city's tax would be $346.83. It's not a large reduction but council members emphasized empha-sized that it is a reduction. Marisa Wright said the first time the city lowered taxes the county said they hadn't heard of another city doing such a thing. Adopting the tax rate and the budget based on it provided some light moments in what be gan as a heated meeting with repeated re-peated statements of opposition . to the recreation center at the golf course from Jerry Dearing-er, Dearing-er, Ken Cromar and Cato Jones, who read a letter demanding that the city stop construction on the center or face legal action. ac-tion. While the mayor was talking talk-ing about the budget, Council Member Jim Perry said, "So what you're saying is, we've lowered taxes." He repeated it a couple of times and addressed ad-dressed a reporter, "We've lowered taxes." Laughing, the reporter called out the sentence sen-tence to another reporter then said, "So what you're saying is, you've lowered taxes even though people won't notice it because their taxes are going to be higher over all, but you have lowered taxes." "He's got it," Kirk said. Council members complimented compli-mented City Manager Konrad Hildebrandt and his staff whose hard work has allowed the city to provide a high level of services ser-vices even while lowering taxes. Perry mentioned the city's recent re-cent decision to use the fire station sta-tion as a fire station rather than city offices as an example of raising the level of services. Earlier in the Spring the city won a prestigious award for being be-ing well run, and not for the first time. At the end of one council meeting Perry said he had been reading more about the award and was impressed, that it was not an award that comes easily or routinely to cities. |
