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Show iakc eribnnc bc Monday Morning Section January 20, 1906 Page A 8 Countys Tax Appeal System Worked Out OK After All Lake County Board of Equalization. Thats from 14,413 appeals filed. What it signifies is an ability and willingness by the county assessors office to verify and rectify mistaken property values. No one in authority Obviously there wasnt much to enjoy about it for anyone involved in last years Salt Lake County property tax ordeal. But in at least one important regard, the system worked as intended. Anguish began with the assessment notices. Due to a state law requiring a virtual blanket revaluation of property in the county for tax purposes, the values were raised, some dramatically, many excessively. However, the excess could be, and largely was, corrected. A report issued Thursday disclosed that 95.3 percent of the property owners who formally protested their revaluations were granted a reduction. Presumably this was in accordance with procedures for appealing property tax values. The process is not particularly difficult. If, for instance, a homeowner believes his house has been given a value much higher than it would command on the current real estate market, he need only provide the county assessors office with information on three recent sales in his general neighborhood of property of comparable age and size. If this proves that the present market justifies lowering the value, thats what must be done. Evidently it was done in the case of 13,739 appeals last year to the Salt ever claimed the revaluation factor used was infallible. In following the law, the Utah State Tax Commission sampled the county real estate market and or dered the revaluation factor to bo used. The county assessors office used additional samples and arrived at its own factor. Then it became the property owners turn. And it was the most critical because it could determine the actual market value. For some, of course, filing an appeal was an inconvenience. Conceivably, some property owners are paying more taxes than they should because they either didnt get informed about the appeal process, didnt get around to using it or simply were unable to. But the fact that 14,413 did avail themselves of the opportunity and that 13,739 did so successfully means this part of the system is effective. Effective as a way to accurately determine property values and as a way, for the lucky ones, to reduce what would have otherwise been an erroneously high property tax bill. Bush, Hart Face Tough Run to 1988 Universal Press Syndicate Barely had Gary Hart hinted he was running for president than he became the lightning rod for the Democrats. The pundits immediately said he had no really new ideas. Others said he had new ideas, but they were that is, his no better than his ideas in 1984 old new ideas. George Bush has not promised any new ideas. He is content for the moment to sup Retiring in Honor The temptation was, in all too many cases, simply irresistible. Because those red and white fire alarm boxes stood alone and unobserved, it was easy to pull them and, subsequently, inconspicuously, watch the arrival of the fire equipment, with sirens screaming and red lights flashing; witnessing, also, the justifiable anger of fire fighters who had been rousted out of a warm station in response to one more false alarm. At least, in recent years, that was the case nine out of ten times. It is also one of the major reasons that Salt Lake City is removing the last 40 of what at one time were nearly 400 fire alarm boxes around the city. What was once a high tech device for alerting fire fighters in a time when few people had telephones and, in some communities, many people could not speak English, is now a quaint, but obsolete, community fixture. Fire alarm boxes have been on the way out for nearly three decades in Salt Lake City because the telephone has been long recognized as the instrument of choice to alert the fire department. And well it should. Alarm boxes, even when they werent the tool of a dangerous and the false alarm expensive hoax lacked efficiency. All they told fire port Ronald Reagans old ideas on his own. fighters was which box to go to. Once That was not always so. Once Reagan's ideas there, fire fighters had to look for the were no more than voodoo economics to fire. Now the telephone allows fire dispatchers to get a precise address and to make some assessment of the fires severity. This, in turn, means a more efficient manning of the fire, getting enough equipment and manpower to the fire right away, instead of waiting until the first crews arrive at the box, locate the fire and begin fighting it. Also, the sophisticated 911 emer- gency phone system, which allows dispatchers to trace alarm calls to their source, has done much to eliminate the biggest bane of those ancient the wasteful and unalarm boxes necessarily dangerous false alarm. defiStill, for all its modern-da- y and the fire alarm the box, ciencies, U was has of, alerting system part done yeoman service. It is part of the past now, but it shares an equally honorable place with such symbols of the high traditions of Americas fire sern vice as the pumper. would be appropriIt, therefore, ate, when the last of Salt Lake Citys fire boxes is retired from active service, that it be suitably chrome-plate- d and mounted in a place of conspicuous horse-draw- honor; possibly Station. the lobby of No. 1 Truly Beneficial In a day when most people recognize that caring for the natural environment is not only important but vital, the idea that maintaining a habitat for fish is not a beneficial use of that water is an anachronism. Also, it is plain dumb. That is what the flows" bill now under consideration by the Utah Legislature is all about, or mostly about. The measure, which would permit the Division of Wildlife Resources to acquire water rights to preserve fish habitats, lamentably has been stalled in the House of Representatives Energy, Natural Resources and Agriculm ture Committee. Some committee members still have problems" with the bill, apparently fearing that it will jeopardize agricultural interests use of water from Utah streams. It must be asked whether those committee members really understand the bill. Probably most important, the bill expressly forbids the state, through the Division of Wildlife Resources, from using its right of eminent domain to acquire, through condemnation, water rights for maintaining flows. This, right off, places the DWR in the same position as any other citizen who wants to acquire water rights. The DWR would have to compete m in the marketplace for fishery water. The division would have to buy, at competitive prices, water rights, as would any rancher or farmer who warts more water. The bills gri test departure from iustoiical tradition is that it includes among the definitions of beneficial use the raising of fish. That function would become equal to raising cattle, sheep, grain, apples, peaches, alfalfa and other edible plants, along with providing water for municipal and industrial purposes. The legislation doesnt trifle with the traditional bedrock of Western water law: prior appropriation first in time, first in right." DWR would probably try to acquire older" rights in order to enhance its efforts to maintain continual stream flows, but the agency couldn't use the condemnation powers of the courts to do it. Stripped to its essentials, the flows" bill doesnt do much more than include the objective of maintaining viable and productive fish habitats as a "beneficial use" of water. "in-strea- It is a progressive step, in keeping, with the growing perception by most and enhanced people that a cared-fo- r natural environment, including bountiful fisheries, is an integral part of any definition of the "good life." Bush. He said that six years ago, but the half-lif- e of a incident is agonizing in length for a politician. This is especially so for that most tempting morsel of our political circus, the front- runner. In Hart and Bush we have two good examples of the sacrificial nature of being first in the age of presidential television politics. Indeed, I would go further and say by the time the media and others have finished carving on these two carcasses, little of either is likely to be left by 1988. The perils facing Bush and Hart are greater than those of being bad as that problem can be. The bigger prob- front-runner- s, lem each faces is in trying to transcend the extremes of his party. Each is aware of the challenge of being nominated by a party whose extremes have a great deal to say about who is chosen as the standard-bearer- . Once nominated, each must shed the burdens of the extremes and try to find the heart of mainstream America. No Democrat is likely to be nominated without passing the partys litmus test on fairness, the Democrats label for a commitment to equal opportunity for women and minorities. Hart knows he cannot be elected on the fairness platform on which Walter Mondale sank in 1984. To be elected, he must be nominated, and that means a choice. He can accept his partys present posture, or he can opt to try to reformulate the partys posture in ways more acceptable to middle America. If he has a "new idea to accomplish that, hes so far kept it a secret. He will be dancing on that hot tin roof for the next two years. George Bush has a tin roof no less sizzling. His great burden is the right wing of the Republican Party. The apparatus of the party in 1980 and 1984 was firmly in the hands of ideologues far to the right of Bush or the country. To be nominated, Bush must polish his image on the right. To be elected, he must attract the centrist pragmatic American voter. No right-win- g ideologue is she or he. Accepting Ronald Reagan is different from accepting wholesale the philosophy of the far right. Once again, Bush has the choice of trying to reposition his party, but it is hard to imagine his trying, let alone succeeding. Not too long ago the vice president paid tribute to the late William Loeb at a dinner in Loebs honor. He did so despite the fact Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover Chicago Tribune Service - Nevertheless, the AFL-CIO- s Committee on Political Education, its chief campaign arm, has decided that Reagan can be a ma- jor catalyst for greatly increasing the number of union members willing to work hard to elect Democrats in these targeted states. COPE has recently conducted four focus-grou- p discussion sessions, two in Birmingham, Ala., and two in Kansas City, Mo., among such union members to determine what is most likely to get them to become political activists in the approaching Senate campaign. Overwhelmingly, according to Joe Velasquez, director of the COPE program, the answer is: Ronald Reagan. Among these individuals on Reagan's policies, particularly on issues like trade and jobs that affect the labor constituency, taking political action to counter him is of paramount importance, Velasquez workers says. And while other blue-collmay be mesmerized by the Reagan personality and pitch, he says, these others want to undercut which COPE him the best way they can says is wresting the Senate from the Repubd licans. Also, he says, the average union member may not be aware or concerned about Reagans record toward organized labor, but these would-bactivists are. The focus he groups, says, surfaced allegations of against the president, espestrike in 1981, cially in the indicating that Reagan remains a villain in the eyes of many unionists. So the idea is to tap that disapproval for political recruits, while not bashing him in appeals to all those r voters who went for him in 1980 and 1984 COPE as of now has targeted 12 Senate races, in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington, with others probably to be added later. Of these, eight are now in Republican hands. In each one, the plan Is to identify through heavy mailings those union members who want to get politically involved, and then to motivate them - with Reagan and with issues the focus groups have indicated are on their minds e union-bustin- blue-colla- about as America. right-win- g as any publisher in Bush suffered bruises about the head and shoulders from moderate and liberal critics for his Loeb speech. Those who criticized Bush are not likely to be able to deliver him the nomination. Those his speech was intended to placate have more to say on such matters. ofThose are the reasons ten die in the back stretch. They are such tempting targets with so many needs from so many quarters. The news media, especially television, love the spectacle of discomfort the way dogs love shinbones. The news is often about people tripping on hot tin roofs in the political arena. Gary and George, tall and lanky, are going to be tested on how well they can stay on their feet in a hostile atmosphere in the councils of their parties and in the news me- dia. If neither lasts until November of 1988, it will in large measure be due to being front-runne- ' James Brady Queens Chief Is Focus of Political Fuss King Features Syndicate Labor to Flex Political Muscles With nearly half of all WASHINGTON union households having voted for President organized labor in its Reagan's quest to help win Democratic control of the Senate is not likely to get much direct mileThat is, it makes age out of Reagan-bashingood sense for labor to lay off Reagan and focus on the individual Republicans running in the states it has targeted. Loeb excoriated Bush at every opportunity during the 1980 New Hampshire primary. Loeb had been publisher of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader for many years. He was The slogan for the drive, also developed out of the focus groups, is Campaign for Four Family, Country, Union and Job Good Reasons to Get Involved. And the brochures dont shy away from Reagan-bashinWere going to call on the rank and file, one of them says, to get involved to protect our family from Reagan Republican attempts to wipe out all the advances weve won in decades of hard bargaining at the to protect our country negotiating table from Reagans cruel economic policies that t weaken America by exporting our best jobs to foreign lands to protect our union s in the White House from the to protect our jobs. and Senate The new recruits, once identified, are to be given an intensive training course from National COPE staffers using specially prepared videotapes on how to run phone banks, identify and register voters, conduct direct-macampaigns and get out the vote on Election Day. The sessions, Velasquez says, will begin sometime after March in each of the targeted states. In other years, organized labor often has applied litmus tests to candidates, to determine whether they are "right on labor issues. This time around, though, the clear objective is Democratic control of the Senate, and being a Democrat obviously will be the only real litmus test. Much has been said over the last several years about organized labors loss of political clout. The strong union vote for Reagan has been Exhibit A, but before that the unions suffered a string of setbacks on labor legislation in Congress. Newer candidates, while not shunning labor support, have learned not to go to the bank on it. Yet the fact is that its highly unlikely that Walter Mondale would have been the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee had it s endorsement and not been for the work in his behalf. The campaign for control of the Senate gives organized labor a new opportunity to demonstrate its political muscle, and this latest COPE effort is an attempt to do just that. ... ... union-buster- ... il AFL-CIO- Orbiting Paragraphs Horse sense is the quality that keeps equines from belting on people. You're not really bald until you notice it when a hair is missing A heavy investment in ski equipment is the surest way to bring on a mild winter. What dieter is more dedicated than the one who Insists on a lo cal anesthetic? It took us only 10 days into the new year to have a big political scandal in New York. The scandal happened to Donald Manes, the borough president of Queens. Queens is a vast area of New York noted for its quiet, bedroom communities, for the New York Mets, and for being where Archie Bunker lives. Now Queens will forever be known as the borough where the borough president got stabbed. Mr. Manes is a large, jovial gent known universally as Donnie. Everyone likes Doi-nihe wins as regularly as the Yankees used to win pennants, his political acuity is broadly admired, and since he Is still young (his 52nd birthday is Jan. 19) there are those who see him as a future mayor or even more. On the Thursday evening before the scandal, Donnie left a party at borough hall in his own car and drove off. About two the next morning the cops pulled him over for driving erratically. They found his left wrist was badly cut, the car was spattered with blood, a knife was found. At the hospital they found a second deep cut on his right ankle, from which the sock had neatly been rolled down. All weekend the Queens D A. tried t question Donnie. What happened, Donnie? the newspaper headlines screamed. The doc tors said he couldnt see the D.A. There wen the two bad cuts and, besides that, they declared he had a heart attack and rushed him into intensive care. No one could talk to Donnie. His family got in to see him and one physician reported he was sitting up reading the papers. But the cops couldnt see him; the D.A. couldnt. On Monday the mayor of the city, Ed Koch, said hed heard all the rumors: that Donnie had tried to kill himself; that Donnie had picked up a hooker and was attacked. Then, said Mayor Koch, he didn't give a damn what happened. It was only important that Donnie recover. No, said the mayor, he didn't think whatever happened would have any impact whatsoever on Donnie's career. In New York, apparently, if you gel stabbed by a hooker or slash your own wrists, its okay, if you work the political trade. i Finally, on Monday night, they let the cops and the D.A. into the room. Donnie wove them a fine talc. Two guys had hidden in the back of his car and assaulted him. That's all he remembers. The story stinks from start to finish. The doetors who at first were saying Donnie was fine and they were stitching him up were now saying he was close to death and had a heart attack. Either the doctors dont know their medicine or they are blowing smoke, Who were the two guys in the back seat Why didnt they stab him through the sock? Where was he for seven or eight hours? |
