For a lot of you, New Year’s Eve is a time for memories, Auld Lang Syne, making resolutions, and looking forward to a better future.
New Year’s Eve was always a very significant day in my professional career. It was the last day property taxes were due! For more than a quarter of a century I was the chief financial officer of various cities and counties, from Chapel Hill, N.C., to Richmond, Virginia, and whether or not folks paid the taxes I had estimated to be needed for public services was a measure of my success.
I got a thrill from responsible citizens lined up at the collection windows “happily” paying their property taxes. If you owned a home in your prior life, and I believe most of you did, you paid an average tax bill well in excess of several thousand dollars to keep your fire and police paid and your streets safe, to assure clean and sanitary restaurants, to provide health and social services for your less fortunate neighbors, and to enjoy parks, hiking trails and tennis courts.
Today you still have the benefit of all of those, but you no longer have to pay. So, as you count your blessings today, be thankful for all those good people who are still providing their resources for the public services you paid into for many years.
And this year, sit back, relax and enjoy the benefits of living at Trinity View and savings that you may not have considered, a ton of money in property taxes.
