Beaufort County - Sailing into High Taxes | Eastern North Carolina Now

    During the past four years Beaufort County has had a major change in financial policy. The election of Gary "Nonsense" Brinn as both commissioner and his election as Chairman of the Board by the Democrats along with those representing themselves as Republicans Has brought a liberal taint to the Board of County Commissioners. The thinking of this majority of liberals is that the people of Beaufort County need a lot of things and they intend to provide those things. They are willing to raise taxes to pay for your supposed needs.

    This board is prone to latch on to liberal gimmicks and policies put up by the Obama administration. They have embraced security to the tune of about $800,000 this year. This includes schools and the court house. They have purchased land at more than three times the appraised value. About 15 acres for the community college that appraised at $5,000 per acre for more than $15,000 per acre and an eight acre mud hole (dredge pond) for $400,000 in a remote area. They almost took on a real money rat hole in the VOA site. Fortunately enough pressure was put on them to get out of that deal for about $100,000. Then there was the 1.6 million dollars that was paid for architecture plans for a jail that is not needed and will not be built.

    More recently the board has taken a single bid for what will be an over built radio system for 1.8 million dollars with a competitor saying he will build the system for 1.2 million. Single bid contracts should always be looked on as a corrupt practice.

    We are in the midst of providing an EMS system that is much more than we need. Taxes have already gone up because of this and they will go up again.

    Just this week the Board of Commissioners voted to increase costs to Beaufort County and the City of Washington taxpayers by $350,000 without improving services. This bad judgement involves canceling a contract of EMS services with the City of Washington and then raising taxes to provide the same service. This is a zero sum game for EMS services and a $350,000 hit to the taxpayers.

    The school system wants to replace modular units at the Washington High School instead of trying to fill the 2,000 empty seats we have in the school system. It does not make sense to spend money to build new school buildings when we have some schools that are only half full.

    The average home owner had a 10 percent increase in taxes this year simply because these elected officials simply cannot say "NO". It seems like we are afflicted with the same kind of bad judgement that has been running wild in Washington, DC during the past several years.

    There is much more than this. It all comes down to bad judgement. The skill, ability, and financial and business judgement of those who are elected to public office has a huge impact on how comfortably you live. This is particularly true since the bottom came out of the economy in 2008. Few of us have recovered.

    Further compounding our standard of living is the bad money policy of the Federal Government. Spending is out of control. All taxes, county, state and federal, are oppressive So much money has been loaned and printed that the entire financial system is shaky. Our largest industrial employer, PCS, has fallen on hard times. They have reduced spending and consequently are paying us as much as one million dollars less in taxes each year.

    It is during times like these that we should reduce Beaufort County government spending. Instead, the six liberal commissioners are increasing spending. Unless we change out some of these big spenders we are headed for much higher taxes.

    I have worked hard not to increase spending. However, there are three commissioners who are running for office this year who have repeatedly increased expenses and raised taxes. They are Nonsense Brinn, Jerry Langley and Robert Belcher. If you want taxes to continue to increase, vote for these three. If you want taxes to go down, vote for Hood Richardson. At the present time, I am only one, a strong vote for me will send them a strong message.