The Herald, O’Brien at it Again
By Editor at June 28, 2024 | 8:45 am | Print
Nothing was more shameful than to see a pack of lies on the front page of The Herald on Monday morning.
The headline read “Mayor O’Brien says plan for $237M spending plan won’t raise taxes”.
That statement is totally not true and anyone naiive enough to believe or write it deserves to be offended by this editorial.
First off a quick trip to tax offices and you will find out about 25 percent of property taxes will increase. That is right. Some will rise.
Of course it was done through selective taxing so those living on the west side of the City, who did not vote for Mayor Tim O’Brien, get the highest of all the tax increases.
But, even if you do not pay more in taxes, the value of your home decreased. That alone should decrease your taxes by a lot. But, it only decreases by a little bit. That essentially means your taxes rose.
O’Brien is not telling you the complete truth.
For example, if your home was assessed at $122,500 last year, you paid $4,500 in taxes. Now it may be reassessed at $93,500 and you will pay $4,100 in taxes. It seems you lost $29,000 in value, but only $400 in taxes. If the mill rate did not rise you would be paying $3,144 in taxes. But you are not. You are paying $1,000 more in taxes than you should because of O’Brien.
In 5 years if your house goes back to its original value of $122,500, you will be paying over $5,400 in taxes. Guess what? You are paying higher taxes this year!
Those of us paying car taxes will also see an increase in taxes. The mill rate rose by about 8 mills. Each year the value of your car decreases and you should pay less in taxes. You won’t this year.
It wasn’t difficult to figure this all out. Shame on the Herald for believing a spew of nonsense dished out by the mayor’s office.
Get your facts. It is not that difficult to do some research. Good reporters do that.
But, when a newspaper believes what was told to them by an administration without researching it, it is a sham.
And to make matters worse, the Herald choose not to write about O’Brien’s opponent’s Mayoral announcement event last week but gave credit on Tuesday to O’Brien for a Streetscape Project that he did not start.
The biased reporting needs to stop. That is not what the media is about. This paper will bring it to the forefront every time.
You cannot write misinformation and expect the public to take what you say you seriously.
We get enough of that at City Hall.
