In Michigan's Upper Peninsula (near Marquette if memory serves) a large building saw a HUGE jump in its assessed value and property taxes after it was leased to Menard's, a big-box store that sells mostly building supplies (a competitor of Lowes and Home Despot).
The owners of the building appealed the assessment and were denied. They took it to the Michigan State Supreme Court and the landlord's case was validated. Assessors cannot change the value of the assessment based on the name of the tenant, the number of vehicles in the parking lot nor the value of the merchandise stored within the walls of the property.
The Michigan State Supreme Court also agreed that the municipality had to make the property owners whole. They had to return the excessive taxes they extracted. Of course, the municipality had already spent the money on things like music festivals and hiring underprivileged summer workers.
The magnificent thing about this ruling is that it disincentivized "aggressive" assessments because it is MUCH more painful to municiapalities to over-tax and then have to make the victims whole than to move in smaller, more defensible steps along the way.
At one time, the size/value of a property was a reasonable proxy for the income that could be generated from the property. A 40 acre farm could be reasonably expected to produce significantly more disposable income than a 20 acre farm.
Today that relationship is warped because the only way that income can be generated is if the property is sold which unhomes the occupants. And unless the property is put on the market and sold, all guesses about its value are purely speculative.
Work
"Work smarter, not harder" is a phrase that irks me.
Taken to the extreme, it implies that if you are smart enough that you will never have to work. That morphs into "Only stupid people work."
Gardening notes
Most of Southern Belle's garden is in. This is her first garden in Michigan. She wanted tomatoes, zucchini squash, green beans, cucumbers, Romaine lettuce, mustard greens and potatoes. She also wanted purple corn but her 600 square feet of garden makes that tough.
Most of Mrs ERJ's "salad garden" is in. Sweet Baby Girl tomato, zucchini, Super Sugar Snap peas, green onions, cucumbers and green onions.
None of the gardens look very impressive. Lots of dirt. Some stakes. A few, spindly plants poking up here-and-there.
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| The Upper Orchard. The mound of green on the right side of the frame is Lemon Balm which seems to be very happy here. It must be very resistant to browsing by deer and rabbits. |
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| We ran across this guy while walking the orchard. Probably not much older than a day-old. He had that awkward figuring-it-all-out gallop. |
I walked the Upper Orchard with a gentleman who owns a bush-hog. I tied surveyor's tape to trees I did not want shredded. He put flags by items (like stumps) that were too big for his brush hog to digest.
Metrics
We tend to get more of what we measure. A well thought-out measurement system tends to manage itself. A stupid measurement system sows chaos and discontent.
Last year, I had a goal of walking 65 miles during the month of June. This year I am considering counting time in the garden/orchard toward that goal (66 miles this year).
I can walk about three miles in one hour, but time in the garden and orchard are not that aerobic. On the simple basis of incremental calorie burn, two or three hours in the garden might be the equivalent of one hour walking. However, there are some tasks like dragging brush or pulling hoses that are MORE aerobic than simply walking.
I am currently leaning toward counting an hour of "heavy gardening" as three miles of walking: pushing a mower, running a tiller, digging, carrying water, dragging brush or hose 1-for-1 in terms of time. For "light gardening": Mowing while riding a tractor, weeding, using a sprayer I am contemplating two hours of "light gardening" counting as three miles.
Gardening and walking goals do not have to be in direct competition. They are similar enough that they can be complimentary.
Any thoughts from my readers?
ERJ - Re other measures of activity: Absolutely. Arguably, such activities are as or more aerobic than just "walking".
ReplyDeleteWould a party get behind the liquidation of property taxes on the state level, they would almost guarantee a landslide for their party. Although this year we were the beneficiary of a decrease in the assessed amount, our overall value has climbed 100% since we purchased our home based purely on perceived value.
Property taxes have a much longer history in this country than income taxes.
DeleteThey are actually one of the reasons you needed to be a land owner to be afforded the privilege of voting. You had skin in the game and a tie to the community as well as being one of the ones funding all levels of government.
They do Anon, and to my shame I do not know specifically how they were assessed back in the day. That said, in current world they seem assessed largely by the needs of those that wish to spend the money (mostly unwisely from my point of view). In some ways a flat increase seems better than the wild fluctuations of the market.
DeleteCould put the whole poem here but the meat of the discussion:
ReplyDelete“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
If you are going home nicely tired and things are getting done well, why try to make it a 65 mile thing?
I have an out-side wood furnace to heat our house and cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking 10 full cords a year is my primary exercise. And it makes me get up, get dressed and go outside to fill it no matter what the weather so it keeps me going. I recommend it. ---Coyoteken
ReplyDelete"Work Smarter, Not harder"...
ReplyDeleteI always took that to mean be more efficient in your work, and that equates to the same result as working harder.
Being "smart" about how you do things can greatly improve your efficiency and amount of work for a given energy input.
YMMV
Yeah, that has always been my take on the phrase as well. It was used towards me by old-timers teaching me a trick or two. Drag the brush over to the burn pile in 1 trip, rather than trying to pick it up and carry it, requiring 2 trips. That's working smarter, not harder.
DeleteThe only time it was used in insult was when they wanted to point out you were doing something stupid, and it was usually well-deserved.
Regarding "work smarter, not harder". I learned something from working with Indians. Did you know/I didn't know until recently that Indians don't say "Buwat is lazy", rather they say "Buwat is clever" meaning Buwat is able to talk other people into doing things he doesn't want to do. I've seen enough instances of this happen in front of me to realize it's true even if politically incorrect
DeleteProperty taxes: We have a lot of fixed-income retirees in our town and the last few years of large property tax increases have led to much unhappiness. As part of a town Master Plan revision I'm looking into alternative methods of funding local government. Haven't found anything sensible yet. Of course, if we abolished government schooling the tax burden would decrease by more than half and nobody would complain. Currently we're spending over $15 million a year to give a poor education to fewer than 600 children.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Michael, if things are getting done and you are going home tired then all is well. The old Ted Nugent quote about "work hard, play hard" used to be true for me, but in retirement it has morphed into something more like "Work hard enough, and rest easy."
ReplyDeleteTake a little time to smell the roses as it were.
Milton
"Work smarter, not harder" is what 'they' tell you when they have more work than they have people.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat facetious: "If I had wanted to work for a living, I wouldn't have become an engineer"
ReplyDeleteLemon Balm - tough as old boots and adds pleasantly to a salad.
ReplyDeletePeas: we can grow beans of any variety but have problems with peas. My wife told this to a local nurseryman. "Same for us" he said. "Do you have a solution?" "Yes" he said, "we're selling up and moving on to different soil."