Cabarrus Cheap Seats

This is probably one of the most subtle, yet important differences in the two articles. What happens with money outside of the budget. If you noticed, the FY 2006 budget is balanced to the penny. This never happens in reality. Actually, municipal governments are sometimes left with a little more than they anticipated. This happened [...]

[Read more →]

Over the next couple of days, I’m going to take the directly opposing statements made by both Commissioners Carruth and Privette and compare them against widely available facts. Today, I’m going to cover claims and counter-claims made regarding the amount of money brought in by property taxes:

[Read more →]

In an attempt to be fair and balanced, I’m posting the editorial that ran in today’s and Sunday’s Independent Tribune from Robert Freeman and Coy Privette. If you read through both of these, you will have been exposed to just about the entire content of the campaign rhetoric for the 2006 Cabarrus County Commissioner’s race. [...]

[Read more →]

Newsflash: Harold Smith wins another election! The first was to the Cabarrus Men’s Club - kind of a concession to losing in his recent bid to be Chairman of the Cabarrus County Republican Party. Well, for his next victory he campaigned for people to go to the Independent Tribune poll that is “not scientific” and [...]

[Read more →]

Following the vote setting the tax rate to $0.63 per $100, Bob Carruth wrote an editorial covering the reasons behind that decision and the parameters surronding it. The Independent Tribune didn’t post this on their website. In spite of that, they provided this community with a great service for handling an article of this length, [...]

[Read more →]

In a poll released last week by the North Carolina Center for Voter Education, more NC Voters could identify recent American Idol winner Carrie Underwood than they could Attorney General Roy Cooper.
In their article, they postulate that public financing would take the pressure off of candidates; but I have another idea. A review of the [...]

[Read more →]

Following his support of the latest County property tax hike, Bob Carruth provided a thoughtful and thorough explanation of the decision to make that move, Which was published in the Independent Tribune.
Predictably, Harold Smith responded as follows:

[Read more →]

Tuesday night, the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners raised the ad valorem property tax rate from 0.53 cents on the $100 valuation to a rate of 0.63 cents on the $100 valuation. It’s important to keep in mind what led to this tax increase. But first, a few words from Harold Smith.

[Read more →]

As the county holds the budget meeting for one of the largest tax increases in this county’s history, you bet Harold Smith has something to say about it.
Here’s the text from his latest post:
June 10, 2005: Cabarrus County Has a Spending Problem!

[Read more →]

On his site, Harold Smith posted two articles of interest which are related. On June 1, he made an appeal to website visitors to sign an on-line petition opposing the proposed tax increase. Now, I didn’t sign it, because I believe the county’s explanation of why the taxes need to go up, and some of [...]

[Read more →]