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Cognitive Dissonance Reigns in Councilman’s Pronouncements

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For the umpteenth time the County Council President has labeled the property assessment system as flawed while arguing the assessments in place currently should be unchanged. How’s that for consistent logic? If the Councilman is convinced that assessments can never be done accurately, then he is saying the current values probably contain many huge errors-something the lawsuit against the County demonstrated conclusively to the judges leading to court orders to re-assess. How then can he, in good conscience, be part of a government that imposes and collects taxes knowing the inequities in the assessments?

As part of County government that levies taxes on property purportedly based on its market value, the Councilman has a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure that values used to determine the amount of tax owed are as accurate as possible. Defending known gross errors in assessed values and fighting to keep them in place is a dereliction of duty of the highest order.

By going further and spreading the false premise that everyone’s taxes will rise after a re-assessment and claiming that tax bills are being held down by keeping the existing known flawed assessments in place is the height of fatuous political rhetoric. As such it reveals a stunning absence commitment to the principles of good governance and disrespect of basic rights of citizens.

If this is the attitude of people sworn to uphold the law in Allegheny County, which includes obeying judges’ rulings, it would be entirely appropriate for the state to remove the property assessment responsibility from the County or alternatively disallow the power of governments in the county to levy property taxes.

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