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Petitions
From Page A1
two cent tax rate is to be used specifically for a real estate conservation easement fund to induce owners of large farmland to give up their development rights. Say NO to the new proposed ordinance that would enable the Board of Supervisors to establish the two-cent tax,” says the top of this petition. Although the petition does not identify its source, it seems to be associated with the loosely organized group of Rappahannock citizens that dominated the June 5 meeting.
“We are just local people from all around, who are against tax payer money going to purchase development rights from large land owners,” said Flint Hill resident Jean Lillard, who spoke extensively at the June 5 meeting and circulated some of the petitions.
Previously, Lillard and other like minded citizens have indicated that they oppose the idea of tax payer funded conservation easements because they see it as a tax on all land owners in the county to subsidize a few, who by definition are large property owners.
“Landowners are already compensated for their development rights by the Virginia Outdoors foundation, in the form of big tax credits. They can even sell those credits, so why should someone that just lives on a little piece of land have to pay more for them?” said Lillard.
As the emphasis on the ordinance in their petition demonstrates, Lillard and other opponents of the district have now shifted their attention to focus on the actual language of the proposed law that would create the Conservation Easement District.
“The new ordinance is what would allow them to create the district. It’s very broad,” said Circuit Court Clerk Margaret Ralph, who has also been a vocal opponent of the proposed Conservation Easement District. Ralph, and presumably signatories to the petition believe that the Ordinance would allow the county to expand what is taxed to fund the district beyond just the two cent rate hike, although neither County Administrator John McCarthy nor the BOS have indicated any plan to do so.
“The [BOS] may annually levy a tax on assessed value of all personal property within the Conservation Easement Service District,” is the text of the actual ordinance proposed by McCarthy. However, McCarthy says that this language was included because it is the same as that used in Virginia’s State Code, and that he has already suggested that the supervisors strike that portion of the proposed Conservation Easement District Ordinance if it were to be approved.
“We haven’t budgeted for that, and we haven’t set up a rate for it,” said
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