- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Property Tax Contemplations
Property taxes have been on my mind for the past couple weeks.
First, the Cape Girardeau City Council granted a liquor license to Mollie's Restaurant even though it's owners -- John and Jerrianne Wyman and a corporation they own -- owes the city back taxes. According to local ordinances, the city isn't supposed to issue a liquor license to a business if they owe any taxes.
But the Wymans managed to skirt the law by putting the restaurant under a brand-spanking-new LLC that, legally speaking, is squeaky-clean. The city considers it a completely new business worthy of a liquor license even though it has the same ownership and the same mailing address as the corporation that the city also says is in the arrears.
I guess the problem I have with this particular situation is one of fairness. Would the city do the same for another business if they had an issue with their liquor license? Obviously, there are valid reasons not to grant a business a liquor license, but I think the fact the city condones this particular corporate name shell-game sets a bad precedence.
Got a bar that has a bad reputation with the police and your liquor license may not be renewed? No problem! Just change your business' corporate name and as far as the city is concerned you have a clean slate.
And then last weekend the Southeast Missourian ran a story about the tax records of 52 elected officials currently in office in Cape Girardeau County.
The report revealed that a handful of the politicians have been tardy with their taxes, but the big finding was that County Commissioner Jay Purcell paid his property taxes late in seven of the last nine years.
The online forum reactions to this story have been fairly vocal.
About a third of the comments said this was not news and that the paper was on a witch-hunt and should not have published the story. One forum poster was so incensed that he said he was going to post the property tax records of the Southeast Missourian employees in protest.
Meanwhile, the rest of the forum posts mostly leaned the other way, and thought the publication of Mr. Purcell's tax records was a legitimate story deserving to be told.
I am in the latter camp. I think the late payment of Mr. Purcell's taxes is worthwhile public information and here's why.
First and foremost, he is an elected official. Along with the other two County Commissioners -- Gerald Jones and Paul Koeper -- they are in charge of millions of tax dollars. In addition, taxpayers are compensating each of these three men over $63,000 a year to manage the county. That's a sizable salary for most elected officials.
And for that much money, I expect a certain level of competency. But if Mr. Purcell has had troubles managing his own finances over a period of years -- property taxes are not a surprise, they come around every year, just like clockwork -- then how can I trust him to help co-manage the County?
Unfortunately, I realize that competency is often not a consideration with our political process. It's more about who you know, how much money you can raise and the image you portray to the majority of your constituents.
Personally, if I had my druthers I would entirely do away with the 3-person County Commission in Cape Girardeau and replace it with a professional County Manager and council. But that's another blog, for another time.
The second reason I think this was a newsworthy story is because of the rumors that have been circulating for at least a month on the forums at SEMissourian.com concerning Mr. Purcell's tax liability problems.
While I'm not privy as to why the paper ran this story -- while I write this blog, I am not a member of the newsroom -- I imagine this online gossip had a lot to do with it. Were the tales being told in the forums actually true? Considering that rumors often tend to mutate into "facts" for a lot of people, I personally believe exposing the truth is the best course of action in situations like this.
Some people may choose to ignore the information reported by the Missourian on the grounds that scrappy Mr. Purcell has been on the Cape Girardeau County political front-lines duking it out with "that there good ol' boy network" and deserves some slack. That is certainly every voter's prerogative.
While I do think that a "good ol' boy network" actually does exist in Cape, I believe the same can be said for every single city and town across this nation, with the possible exception of Lost Springs, Wyoming and a handful of other locations with the same population: one. Good ol' boy networks are inherent with our type of political system.
For me, Mr. Purcell's late payments show a track record, which I -- as both a voter and a taxpayer -- neither like nor respect. Call me old fashion, but I expect more from my elected officials.
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