Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 6 of 9 · from the scan, no model involved
By FRANK REYNOLDS Rappahannock New* Guest Columnist
Frank Reynolds is a resident of Washington, Virginia, and Staff Attorney for the Piedmont Environmental Council—a nonprofit organization with offices in Warrenton. Since 1972, PEC has been engaged in farmland retention, natural area conservation, land use planning, public education, and more recently, the study or proposed uranium mining in Virginia. It serves a ninecounty area of Virginia’s Northern Piedmont.
It seems that whenever any institution, whether private or governmental, finds itself in an economic bind, people begin looking for corners to cut. That is fine, of course, but sometimes the people trying to save money lose sight of their real purpose. It is like the restaurant owner who is losing money, so closes on slow days to save paying his employees—his customers find they cannot depend on him being open; they go elsewhere, and he loses more business.
I am afraid the same may be happening in Rappahannock County, with its commonly shared fiscal problems, and the recent second thoughts about land use assessment of our agricultural and forestal land. To some people, it does not seem fair that certain landowners pay taxes on their land at one assessment while others pay at another value. If you look at the fact that teachers should be getting more money, and the fact that some farmers could be made to pay more taxes— and at nothing else—then it does not seem fair. But that is only a small part of the picture. There is much more to consider.
Let’s start with a few facts:
1. Land use assessment does not apply to any developed land or improvements—only to raw, undeveloped land that is being actively used for certain agricultural, forestal or public uses. All houses, bams, etc. are assessed for taxation at their full market value, whether in a town or on a farm.
2. The tax rate paid by all county residents is the same; it is the assessment of value of qualified land that is different.
3. It is not agricultural or forest land which requires the bulk of county expenditures. Residential uses, and to a lesser degree, industrial and commercial uses, are the biggest users of government’s revenues. For example, in Loudoun County, which has had tremendous residential growth and still
95.7%