Spot assessments: a sure turnoff to homebuyers
Regarding the Aug. 2 editorial “For Property Tax Parity: Newcomers Are Right to Challenge Spot Assessment”: After living and working in northern Virginia for 30 years, my wife and I came back to Pennsylvania thinking we might retire here. Our reasons for returning were many but mainly because research said Pennsylvania was “retirement friendly.”
We rented for a year and a half tosee if we were making the right decision. Shortly thereafter, we bought our retirement home. A few months later. we received a notice of reassessment from the school district. We also started to receive a deluge of letters from local attorneys offering to assist us in an appeals process. I wouldn’t say these letters scared us, but they certainly got our attention. Two appeals, two attorneys, $2,000and six months later, it was over. Since then, we also have received tax bills from the county andmunicipality.
After almost 100 combined years in the workplace, my wife and I have paid our share, and then some, of taxes. We fully expected to do so again in retirement. But this whole experience wasan unpleasant and costly surprisewe didn’t plan for.
We also learned a few lessons. The first: Spot reassessments are not the way to repopulate this area. The second: We are now paying a disproportionate amount of our total income for property tax. Buyer beware. GREG SKAVINSKI
Bethel Park of these die-hard supporters were attracted to Mr. Trump because ofthe bigotry he exhibited during the campaign, it is no surprise that they continue to support him. He has done nothing to disappoint them. The racist, sexist, xenophobic candidate for whom theyvoted is now, to their delight, the racist, sexist, xenophobic presidentof the United States. JOHN GAVALER
Penn Hills
Donald Trump has always negotiated from a place of power. Hisentire real-estate life involved making good people take bad deals and stiffing suppliers and subcontractors. The “Golden Rule” of business is “them that hasthe gold makes the rules.”
Now he is president of the United States. The rules are different. He is completely lost. WILLIAM THIBAULT
Delmont
Good riddance to Anthony Scaramucci and his foul mouth (“Scaramucci Out of White House Job as John Kelly Takes Charge,” Aug. 1). But I found it ironic that TV and radio programs had to bleep out the crude stuff the erstwhile White House communications director said about Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus.
The Federal Communications Commission has rules against such language. Yet the FCC allows political commentators on the radio to spew totally onesided views of American politics, including half-truths and outright
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lies. It goes something like this: Republicans are good no matter what they do (Donald Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters); Democrats are evil no matterwhat they do (provide millionswith affordable health care).
There used to be an FCC policy against this called the Fairness Doctrine, which made such misleading one-sided presentations illegal. The airwaves belong to the people, not the demagogues. This law was killed by the Reagan administration in 1987, giving birth to Rush Limbaugh and his ilk and the polarization of America.
Mr. Scaramucci’s comments were bleeped out because they were deemed obscene under the FCC rules, but what could be more obscene than corrupting the minds of millions of trusting Americans who naively believe that if it’s on the radio it must be true? TOM BALCEREK
Forest Hills