by Marlene Roff-Nixon, Victor
Opposition to the open lands bond program, additional TAX on Ravalli County residents.
Back in 2007, the Open Lands tax (bond) was passed by 10,166 in favor with 7,385 against.
The verbatim language that appeared on the ballot was NOT what has happened. This is a TAX on all of us.
A few things have NOT been in line with the original intent of this program. Most folks don’t know that ALL working farms and ranches are EXEMPT from the tax. The original intent was to apply for conservation easements for family farms and ranches to keep them in the family and prohibit housing development on these properties in perpetuity. A very large number of these conservation easements have been created at Ravalli County taxpayer expense on land that could NEVER be developed due to purged water tables and other issues that would legally require the Ravalli County Planning department to deny them, and yet, huge sums of money have been handed out to land owners, and if the total acreage exceeds 100 acres (even if additional properties are in escrow at the time of the application to be paid for once your tax dollars arrive), then the new, larger property owner qualifies for matching Federal Funds (again, your taxpayer money). Most of these projects provided needed funds to desperate land owners due to the economy or through poor money management. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on a project.
Get this, the land, once a conservation easement is still used for farming, grazing, can be sold or leased out or passed on in a will by the land owner, it simply cannot be developed. Your tax $ at work, just not for you.
Additionally, there is only ONE land appraiser that has appraised ALL of these projects (at the requested value) because he has all the necessary credentials. There are more appraisers who have the identical credentials, but the law that requires appraisers to be selected at random appears to be ignored, something that cannot be done if you sell your property.
In short, this program does not accomplish the original objective, and is a waste of Ravalli County taxpayer’s money. The proposed tax (bond) will be on the November ballot, and hopefully taxpayers that can no longer afford groceries and gas have had enough new taxes to avoid this one and reject the program.