John Taft/ Edward Snook Investigative Reporters Ed/Op

Update: 3-10-03 – The following article is keyed to Josephine County, Oregon, but addresses an issue that is prevalent, and taking on monstrous dimensions across the nation. This article was published in the US Oregon Observer in December 2002. None of the individuals or organizations responded to defend their position of promoting another tax on family homes. The Josephine County Tax Stoppers will directly contact many of the listed individuals and organizations for a personal response, which will be published in the Observer and on StrobeZone. Developing …

GRANTS PASS, Oregon (12-02) -- A well-financed assault against family home ownership was launched in 2002, by local community businesses, organizations, and individuals. This group attempted to place the burden on county homeowners of supporting an additional property tax of 78 cents per thousand of property value. Voters rebelled in mass despite the extensive advertising on the radio and newspapers paid for by the group People for Parks. The money donated was ill spent as a decisive 69 percent of the voters said no to this recent assault on family home ownership.

The treasurer for the People for Parks reported a total donation of $9,957 that’s almost $10,000 spent on promoting the passage of a park-taxing district. The donors include:

Grants Pass Board of Realtors $2,800, Individual donations $2,477, Southern Oregon Sanitation $500, Community Bank of Grants Pass $1,000, 1^st American Title Company, Josephine County, Title Division $500, Home Valley Bank $250, Josephine County Park Foundation $350, Attic, Self Storage $100, Martin Seybold $120, Raymond Gambrill $300, Hutchinson Signs/Graphics $360, Jack Sim $100.00, Club Northwest $1,000

The following organizations and individuals endorsed a tax on others’ homes to pay for the park-taxing district. The names of many others could be published in the next Observer upon request.

Sheriff Dave Daniel (Josephine County Sheriff), Bruce Bartow (Community Development and Planning), Steven Rich (Josephine County Legal Council), Allen Westhoff (Josephine County Fair Manager), Fred Borngasser (Former Josephine County Commissioner), Tom McGill, Pat Fahey, Chuck Hester, Phil Pacquin, Bob Quinn, Dorian Corliss, Judy Gove, Dwight Ellis, Donald Rubenstein, Martin Seybold (Chairman, Three Rivers School District Board of Directors), Terry Soeteber, Phil Stephens, Sunny Sundquist, Dave Toler, Ingar Baker, William Haight

Organizations include the Grants Pass City Council, Grants Pass Association of Realtors, Grants Pass/Josephine County Chamber of Commerce, Josephine Formicola

The listed contributors and supporters of the park-taxing district no doubt don’t feel any pangs of conscience from their attempt to use family homes to pay for their pet community project. Thug mentality uses extortion enforced with violence to obtain what is wanted from others. Property taxes on family homes is a refined type of coercion or extortion. It uses the power of the state under a Robin Hood scheme to coerce annual cash payments from homeowners. The difference between the county, empowered by the state of Oregon, in collecting property tax dollars and a thug in appropriating money is only a matter of degree. The thug spends the money for his own desires, and the county uses the tax dollars for the promoters pet public project. They both use power, threats, coercion, and possible violence to obtain this money. Therefore, it can be concluded that those who promote taxes on family homes have either not thought the matter through or are deliberate in their actions. Neither one can be considered a good neighbor. The voters strongly disagreed with this brazen attempt by the tax and spend crowd to mortgage everyone’s family home to pay for their often self-serving project. Some of these individuals are employed in county government, receiving cushy salaries, benefits, and retirement from the taxpayers. The voters who said no to another tax on their homes now have to decide if the businesses listed are the kind of people with whom they wish to spend their money. The Observer and StrobeZone suggests if you decide not to do business with these people that you make a copy of this article, mail it to them with your name, and phone number. If you don’t tell them, they won’t know that it’s unethical for any man to tax another man’s home to pay for his social agenda.