Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Proposition 1 Good For Cities

Proposition one is not complicated, said State Rep. Percy Malone.

It gives, if passed by the voting public on the Nov. 3 General Election, cities and counties the authority to incur debt to purchase equipment for up to five years.

Currently, it is against the law for a city or county to go in debt for more than 12 months and pay any interest.

Malone said proposed amendment 1 will help save cities and counties money in the long run by allowing them to buy equipment when it's needed and not have to wait. These entities, he said, will be able to operate more like households when budgets are made.

The amendment was written, he said, so the amount of interest a city or county paid could be controlled.

It is also written in such a way as to control how much a city or county could go in debt based on a percentage of their annual budgets.

While the amendment will be on the Nov. 3 ballot, Malone said this is not the first time the legislature has discussed it in the past. However, other emergencies have come up which have put this proposal on the back burner.

Overall, he said, this is a good deal for cities and counties.

Changing topics, Malone said there is a good possibility proposed amendment 4 will not make it on the ballot as fraud has been admitted in the acquiring of petition signatures.

However, he said, most people have no problem with paying property taxes, but are "raising cane" about the unfairness of appraisals.

The people, Malone continued, aren't angry about the taxes being paid to support schools and don't want to punish school districts. However, they are angry about how property is assessed and how value is attached to land.

"Sometimes its unreasonable," he said. "People are having to pay more taxes than ever and aren't getting to vote on it. Neither did the legislature."

The increases, he said, came through appraisals and the people want some kind of representations.

When Amendment 59 was passed a few years ago, Malone said the people were, in effect, sold a bill of goods.

The idea of this amendment was to limit taxing to a total of 10 percent total, but some areas increased their taxes a total of 10 percent a year.

"I think property tax relief has to come," he said, "but it won't mean reducing the amount of money going to schools. It will be a complicated issue and there'll be a lot of debate on it."

Malone said he is working on a way for people who lose their homes in disasters to keep from paying property taxes.