Some facts to clear the distortions from one Mr Portnoy

Sometimes things get very personal. Take the personal grudge (hate fest?) that Sim Portnoy has with me. His hate of me consumes him, driving him to find every way to torture facts to fit his desired perception and outcome, it simply drives him crazy. And it all goes back to when, I, as the new guy on the council, just sworn in, would not cave to his demand that the city not approve the contract to rebuild church drive. His desire was to maintain church as a very dangerous narrow crumbling road (perhaps road is an overstatement, more like a backwoods trail). The city council had approved the plan to reconstruct church drive (as it is today) prior to my even running for office, let alone being elected. This was just the vote to award the construction contract to get the job done, and it was a unanimous vote. But sim does love to hate on me. I actually find it amusing that a person could be so ill informed.

To add insult to injury (this being yet another thing that drives Sim to distraction), I also voted to approve the contract for the reconstruction of Lake Sharon, a road that most people in town really enjoy being able to use. Another dangerous narrow crumbling road, that the city reconstructed into a safe and convenient 4 lane thoroughfare. All with funds approved for that use two years before I even ran for the council. The road itself had been approved (appropriated) by a previous council.

Now to his present distortions - he's hoping you are uncurious and easily confused by our taxes. In 2009, my first year in office, I voted to keep the tax rate the same as in 2008, the net result being a 104,000 DECREASE in taxes collected on existing properties. In 2010, I voted for tax rate whose net result was a 16,178 increase (0.2% of the over 6 million dollars collected); 2011, 47,724 increase (0.8%), and finally in 2012, a 10,190 increase (0.16%). All these numbers are right out of the adopted budgets for 2009, 10, 11, and 12. You can find the adopted budgets at the city of Corinth website (www.cityofcorinth.com)

-104000
+ 16178
+ 47724
+ 10190
========
  -29908         
So property taxes on existing properties were almost 30000 dollars less at the end of my four years on the council than when I started. So, yes, I stand by my statements that I kept taxes flat. And if my statement is wrong, then how come when I said the same thing in 2011 I beat Sim handily in the election for city council? Answer, it wasn't wrong then, and isn't now.

What of the last two years (2013, and 2014), years that I have been off the council? It's a very different story: 2013 - a 160,349 INCREASE on existing property (2.4% ! ), and oh by the way, the council kept the tax rate the same as 2012. 2014 should be great, right? the council reduced our tax rate by one cent, to 0.59489. Huzzah! Wait a minute, our taxes went up 454,000 (that's right, UP almost a half a MILLION dollars) - a whopping 6.9% in one year. Talk about a beating. (And yes, these numbers are directly from the Corinth adopted budgets for 2013 and 2014 - right on the title page as required by State law).

So, you can see that Mr sim's math is at best confused and misleading, and at worst just a plain lie. I think we should do it my way, and focus on the TAX AMOUNT and not the tax rate.

And don't forget, that while keeping our taxes down, I voted to add two police officers to our police force in 2012 - but of course by Sim's logic in his distorted word view, I don't support our public safety personnel.