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Opponent Say AFD
(Continued from Page 1) val for the Red Oak distnc "to avoid paying their fair share of the cost of county services.” According to Eastham, the two largest landowners in the district have already had a more t han 20 percent decrease in their tax bills since the recent reassessment and implementation of use value taxation. All this talk about “The blueness of the Blue Ridge and the greenness of the green pastures is jus’ a red herring,” Eastham claimed. The only green of interest to ag district applicants is “the green of dollar bills,” he said.
He suggested that the applicants for ag districts guarantee they won’t apply for the tax deferrals allowed in the districts. “How many more do you plan to approve?” Eastham asked the supervisors, maintaining that over half the land in Rappahannock County is now covered by use value taxation. “If you must approve (the Red Oak application), I urge you to set it up for four years and let the governing body (four years from now when law requires that the district be reviewed) see if they are as wild for agricultural and forestal districts then as you are now...Do not tie your hands and the hands of future supervisors by carving this thing in stone for almost a decade.”
“The key to this thing is the value for the different categories of lands in agricultural and forestal districts and land use,” countered Supervisor Charles K. Estes, disputing Eastham’s claim that, once approved for eight years, an ag district is cast in stone.
The State Land Evaluation Advisory Committee (SEEAC) recommends assessment values for tjie different categories of property in an ag district. The local commissioner of revenue is not bound by law to apply those “recommended” values but, according to Rappahannock’s commissioner Merle Scoggins, if the values are changed, it’s up to the commissioner of revenue to provide rationale and defense for the new values. The assessed worth for different categories of land here is currently based on SLEAC’s recommended values in effect when Rappahannock’s use value taxation program was adopted. SLEAC raised its recommended values substantially this year.
Estes maintained that Rappahannock should follow that example and up the assessed per acre value for the different categories of land in the use value program under agricultural districts. “I’m for that. They don’t need this big tax break. However, the only time it can be done is in the year of a reassessment,” Estes said.
Rappahannock is currently due for another reas
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