Mr. Kossler’s recent article, “What about your property tax?”,

Mr. Kossler’s recent article,

“What about your property tax?”, reminds me that every two or three years there is a recurring outbreak of mailbox bashing here in the county, and his article has prompted me to respond. What is the connection between mailbox bashing and property taxes Every law enforcement officer can confirm that in this county, just as in every other jurisdiction, every two or three years some young boys, somewhere around the time they first get a driver’s license, go around the county and smash up a lot of rural mailboxes. They always get caught (because they always brag about it), and they are punished, and the publicity about their punishment prevents a recurrence over the next few years. But then a new bunch of boys, who never heard of the last occurrence, reach this barely pubescent age, and they get the “original” (to them) idea to go out and bash some mailboxes. And they get caught, and punished. And the cycle goes on and on. The recurring complaint about the unfairness of land-use taxation, and the had effects of the wealthy retirees who move in, seems to be the result of new people who never heard the actual facts supporting landuse taxation, and never understood exactly what causes taxes to rise.

Mr Kossler is a very nice man, someone I consider a friend, and he is quite intelligent. But he doesn’t have the benefit of the repeated discussions over many years prior to his tenure at the News, and therefore he has failed to benefit from a knowledge or understanding of the actual facts. He, like others, have seen the new assessments, and he is attempting to write a meaningful article about the subject. So, he is bashing the mailboxes of “farmers”, or “old-established families”, or now, “wealthy retirees”. He, without the experience of knowing why land-use taxation is good for all county citizens, has come up with the “original” idea that we are being financially harmed by these wealthy retirees and old, established families. But, he is quite wrong, and I will try to make a rather generalized explanation of his errors.

For about four years in the early 1980s I was staff attorney for the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), a non-profit organization of more than 30 years experience in land use matters, and a consistent advocate for preservation of open space land, farming, and affordable tax rates in a nine county area, which includes Rappahannock County. As the staff attorney, 1 had the benefit of very detailed