Published: September 06, 2008 11:00 pm      

Open letter to citizens of Lauderdale County:

Citizens of Lauderdale, County, you've been hood-winked, lied to, had the facts mis-represented to you, promised a notification - by your county official...(s). You were promised in publishedreports on TV and newspaper that you would be notified by mail if the re-appraisal of your property this year exceeded a 20% increase in value. Mr. Jimmy Slay, your Tax Assessor, made this promise a couple of months ago.

He says now that it is not required by State Law to give such notification. Hogwash! No such notification was forthcoming. They said "they tried"! Only one out of 18 of my neighbors received such a notice, that I've found out about. Think I'm making this up? Get out your tax records showing your appraisal value in 2007, then go to www.lauderdalecounty.com/ and click on 2008 real property appraisal. Put in your street name only, (nothing else is required to pull up your entire street) but you need to leave off the last letter of your street name or the web site will skip your property listing. (I'm not sure if this is a deliberate attempt to hide the info or not.) You can see your 2008 appraisal on the first page, and if you click on the property listing number near the bottom of the page (ie-001) you can see how your home is appraised, size, design, special features, etc.

My property value increased 32%, one of my neighbors increase was 64%, and most of my neighbors were also similarly increased; but only one (1) had received any notice of the increase before the dead-line passed on the 25th of August to contest this new appraisal valuation.

How is it possible for such ridiculous increases when property values are down 15% or more nationwide? Why were notices not sent to property owners? Could it just be more of the "tax and spend" philosophy of our local elected officials? I had checked the web site after the news came out about the re-appraisal being finished, a month or more ago, and no increases was shown. I was told this morning by Mr. Slay that the web site was updated about "three weeks ago" (DUHHHHH????), or only about two weeks before the deadline to contest the new appraisal. I just happened to see the article about Mr. Ray Boswell questioning his increase and decided to "re-check" the web site and saw the newly changed outrageous figures for myself.

Check it out for yourself, online or through the appraiser's office. You can still talk to your county Supervisor and contest the increases before the county rolls are approved.



Gerald Ward

Meridian