‘Ready to start another tea party’
Armed with a box of Irish tea, Gretchen O’Mahoney declared she was ready for another Boston Tea Party.
O’Mahoney, an elderly Custer County resident, brought the tea to the June 20 meeting of the Custer County Commission, saying she was ready to pass the tea out to whomever would like to join her as she rebelled against the skyrocketing property taxes in Custer County.
Whether or not O’Mahoney was completely serious about starting a revolution was unclear, but what was clear was O’Mahoney is the latest in a long line of people to parade through the Custer County Commission chambers to express their disgust with property tax hikes.
O’Mahoney’s issues were exacerbated by a clerical error made within the offices of the Custer County treasurer’s office, from where she was notified she had qualified for the elderly property-tax freeze based on meeting the criteria of being 65 or older and/or disabled and below the state’s maximum income threshold of $51,801, but in a separate letter was later told she was denied the freeze because the valuation of her house was over the maximum of $345,340.
“Somewhere there has to be a stop to this,” O’Mahoney said of the escalating property taxes. “I’m ready to start another tea party.”
O’Mahoney said Gov. Kristi Noem, Sens. Mike Rounds and John Thune and others should be put on notice about the issue, saying the county is losing people that are the backbone of the community because they cannot afford to pay their property taxes.
“These are people who have lived here all their lives and can’t afford to live in their own house they built,” she said. “They paid for all the taxes they could for education, children, roads...anything utilized by the county. Yet they have to sell their house because they can’t afford to pay their taxes.”
Commission chairman Jim Lintz said the county has been trying to address the issue at the state level and county level, and will continue to try to work for change. Lintz said there are now some states in the country that are trying to abolish property taxes altogether.
“If we reduce property taxes in a substantial way, the tax money has to come from some place,” he said. “You have services you have to cover.”
O’Mahoney said as someone who was in business for a long time she understands that aspect, but said the taxes are not equitable and are getting to a level that is unsustainable.
Commissioner Mike Busskohl said the way schools are funded—through property taxes—in the state needs to change.
“What do you want to cut on the schools? Want to pay for less teachers? Something has to be cut. What are you going to cut?” Lintz asked.
Commissioner Craig Hindle said the commission does a good job of keeping its budget level, adding a new source of funding for the state must be found to alleviate the property-tax burden.
Before she left O’Mahoney grabbed her box of tea, saying she would have brought a barrel full but didn’t “think we could throw it in West Dam.”
“You guys know I’m preaching to the choir,” she said. “Something has to be done.”
Also discussed at the June 20 meeting was an issue regarding dust mitigation in front of Merle Semmler’s home on Riverside Road on the eastern part of the county.
Busskohl had requested the issue be put on the agenda, explaining last fall Semmler had called in the fall and was having trouble with dust, as the county was hauling gravel past his home with its trucks.
Semmler eventually paid to have a contractor put magnesium chloride (dust mitigation) on the portion of the road in front of his house, but within the next few months the county graveled over the treated road. Because of that, Busskohl said, Semmler was asking the county to help him recoup the money he paid for the mag water. Busskohl said he felt the county should do so.
Lintz said at the time Semmler was informed the road was being maintained and was set to be graveled, but Busskohl said since the county was hauling gravel right past Semmler’s home it could have dumped the gravel to be placed there prior to Semmler’s treating the road.
To that end, Busskohl made a motion to pay for the same amount of mag water to be put down on the new gravel as was the old portion of the road that was covered up, which would cost around $1,500.
“We have people on Ghost Canyon who do their own stretch in front of their house, are we going to skip their place with gravel or re-mag it when we have to work their highway? Are we going to do this with everybody? I don’t think so,” Lintz said.
County highway superintendent Jess Doyle said paying for the new mag water would open a Pandora’s Box of landowners requesting the same treatment, and said the county has documents spelling out information on magnesium chloride and the county’s right to maintain the public roads the way it best sees fit.
Doyle said he called Semmler at the end of November, early December and cautioned him against putting down the road treatment but told him it was his choice.
“At the time it was nearly December and I said it could snow tomorrow and that mag is not going to do anything,” Doyle said. “He was worried about us covering it up with gravel. I said we will wait to do your stretch of road until the last push.”
Doyle said the portion Semmler paid to have treated was skipped over for three months, and was the last section of the road to have gravel put down.
“It was not for lack of information I gave Merle, I know that,” Doyle said.
When the vote came, Busskohl and Hindle voted in favor of approving the $1,500 expenditure, with commissioners Mike Linde and Mark Hartman voting against. Lintz broke the tie by voting against.
Hindle said the county must do a better job of working with taxpayers in these instances.
“But we do, Craig,” Doyle said.
“Apparently not. Merle’s pissed,” Hindle replied.
In other news from the June 20 meeting, the commission:
• Heard from Andrea Lewis, who said she was still willing to give a presentation to the commission on some possible changes to how the county does assessments.
Lewis also said she was in the middle of the appeal process for one of her mobile homes, which she said was graded incorrectly by the county’s equalization office. She said it was corrected and she has since applied for an abatement, and was told the abatements go from the equalization office to the auditor’s office before coming before the commission for approval. Lewis said after speaking with three people in the auditor’s office and another in the equalization office no one seems to know where her abetment went.
“They are speculating it’s at the state’s attorney’s office, so I am very curious as to how my abatement is at the state’s attorney’s office and why it has taken over a month and a half to show up on a commission agenda,’ she said. “I very strongly feel I still have a target on my back and I’m not exactly sure why this abatement has been stalemated.”
Commissioners asked soon-to-be former equalization department head Leah Vissia where the abatement was, and Vissia said she would address it in executive session.
• Heard from Lea Anne McWhorter, who said she attended the first summer legislative tax committee meeting, saying the committee is looking more at making sure counties are in line with how property is assessed than necessarily how to lower the taxes
“There was recognition among the group that the Black Hills and Sioux Falls corner are very different in how taxation is affecting them,” she said. “I don’t know how this committee is going to address anything in that matter. They didn’t want to talk about taxation.”