Sparring, #fracking and Nerve endings

Sparring

Back and forth I go,
editorial arguments,
woven with social media,
like burrs,
snarling up,
the ties that bind kept entering my mind...

Addison Independent's reporter Zach has renewed my interests.
Commenters using what seems like alias personae are verbally sparring with me and the neighbor, about that pipeline Canadians want to slip in thru the neighbor's garden.

It hit a nerve again today
Property Rights
It screamed.

So I thought I would post one letter,
out of all the letters that I wrote
where I attempted to show the cold cruelty of the so called select board-5 elected people who make some decisions,
and sometimes go too far.
Impossible to fight,
I chose to bring to light what is possible in a sleepy town.
People can be cruel, mean, without even drawing a weapon.

Really an FYI, readers,
My nerves need a virtual poultice.
yes, I did all I could do to try to reform this corrupt sick system...

Hello Governor Shumlin,

On October 13, 2009, our 48 acre farm plus 10 acre swamp property was nearly sold by the Town of Monkton to satisfy about $6,000 for being late 9 months paying taxes.

This was the first year we qualified for property tax adjustment by income.

We had always paid taxes on time for 17 years. This property has been in Fred's family since the late 1800's.

We incurred shame, fees, penalties, costs including percentages of the tax to a lawyer and tax collector.

We were never offered abatement or other arrangements.

I never had any idea this happened until a month later when we paid the next year's tax: $5,000.

The day before the tax sale, Fred paid them from an account we established in case I cannot work.

I have MS. Fred was out of work and had been a self employed electrician.

I have been struggling to get resolution. I applied for abatement but could not face certain people in town.

I argued because of many factors. These are on my blog.

I lost.

I still want to see what they did to notify us they were selling our property and why after only 9 months late.

The selectboard is not cooperating in seeing this. I cannot afford an atty. I am sorry the bill died in the committee to look at penalties like the $500 we had to pay the tax collector (8%). The town cannot even tell me what they did to inform me or my husband. I have asked for over 1 year.

The selectboard does what they want and they stand behind this practice. God help the next people

who are 9 months late paying taxes. Nobody else cares.

Thanks for listening. I think you are doing a good job.

Please look at property taxes, they are robbing from my family of bread.

and off topic, Please let Yankee stay open with conditions. Talk with Meredith Angwin. Please do not emotion rule your decisions on this. Rely on science.

Mary E. Gerdt
alvarita1@aol.com
traveloguefortheuniverse.blogspot.com

Late news..

Something woke me up...surfing twitter w/kindle,
play a game, check FB, email.
Then I saw the emergence of the deal to sell back property to a man who lost his family's legacy to a delinquent tax lien sale by the town.
It was a feel good rare kind of never happens fairy tale thing,
if it were not for things like lawyering, which I guess had to be a part of it.
So I looked for clever tweets to re-tweet thus saving my tired mind from being creative.
Found not a one worth retweet. all pretty snotty, snarky,empty.
newspapers make money on tax sales..legal notices, gossip, shame and icky stuff,
It would be up to me to set the record straight...

I am proud of Governor Shumlin for giving this man back his property.
Not a political move, nothing really to gain.
It was cool. I am surprised. The lawyers need to find new work.
No long drawn out scandalous court case.
Now, time for Vermont Property Tax Reform...if not now, when...

 

Proud of Governor #Shumlin for selling property back to tax sale victim.Now time 4 VT Prop tax Reform.Stop sales of tax liens!
— Mary Gerdt (@marygerdt) August 14, 2013

Halls of Shame II

The Halls of Shame II
by mary e. gerdt
2011 all rights reserved

the halls of shame
are dark and long,
a lonely place &
hard to escape

i published my rants
on my blog and wrote to
all the politicians
i could handle
about how property tax lien sales in Vermont
are
wrong,
mean spirited,
greedy,
evil,
discriminatory,
arbitrary,
and lack due process
by design

that the rules of abatement
are dependent on your stature in town &
how badly someone wants what you have
or wants to destroy who you are.

no response was seen
day after day
i recently started trying to blog & write to the so called free press
about towns and how they have powers
that take my rights away &
they censored me

and when the vt senator who nearly saw his 500k house sold
for 6k that was due 4 months ago
said, we have been shamed
i wondered
why did he think this was
shameful?

i guess the same reason i did

i hoped maybe he would re-look at all the laws
that allow
one local person in each town to foreclose on your
property to satisfy
taxes
and unconstitutional penalties
as if we taxpayers
are all sinners
and
scofflaws
as reported
by the national enquirer trained
so called reporters

what do they know of the halls of shame?

my reporting more street credible,
more personal


and when a lawyer says he cannot pay the taxes
because business is slow
and his legislation
became his own undoing

it is time for a change
in the halls of shame

"the best way to repeal a bad law is to enforce it strictly" Abraham Lincoln

Halls of Shame

notes: i know you may have heard all this before. i am sending this letter to the 2 newspapers in my area. this is the unabridged version. this is my story. mary gerdt


Halls of Shame


c. 2010

by Mary Gerdt



“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly”

Abraham Lincoln



I have been reading the Plato articles by Professor Nuovo in the Addison Independent. These have had a funny influence on me. I remember my Mom’s bookshelf full of the classics. I felt detached from them. Now with Google and instant info, here is a long gone philosopher with insight into modern day struggles.

Have we really evolved?

I have wanted to lay out my common man’s argument against Vermont local town officials being able to sell your property for taxes owed to the town and State of VT and charging fees, advertising expense and the Town’s legal expense.

There is an elaborate manual about tax sales produced by the Secretary of State. Another on abatement of taxes. Laws, statutes, the foundation of Vermont civilized order.

My dream was Plato was reincarnated as me, a middle class female nurse with MS who has had a bumpy road fighting for property with my husband, comrades forever to keep what we have fought for our whole lives.

I work in a cave, a concrete bunker with fluorescent lights. When I come out it is dark, go in it is dark.

This is so I can earn living expenses which are soaring along with property taxes.

We missed the deadline to pay taxes and were assessed 8 percent by the town. Less than 9 months later the Town of Monkton was going to sell my property. My husband, trying to shelter me from this hateful act and likewise sensitive to being on the hall of shame of delinquent tax payers, did not tell me about this.

I really missed the whole event. A few weeks later I found out.

My property was one day away from being sold, which could have led to foreclosure. Someone or several someones knew and wanted it. My former lawyer was used against me and never bothered to try to reach me. No one in the town stopped and asked if I was OK. We have lived in this house nearly 20 years. My husband’s family has paid taxes here for a hundred years, even on property they did not own. Fred and I have always kept off the hall of shame. There were many whose property was not sold after only 9 months delinquency.

Have you ever been there?

The Town of Monkton has decided to sell whoever’s property they want to with their rough cut regulations.

I asked for more info on how they decided my property. A selectman answered the lawyer decided.

I wanted proof they tried to contact me. No proof.

I wanted abatement of taxes in light of our extraordinary circumstances and prior history of paying on time for many years.

They refused to respond to my requests.

This year we qualified for income sensitivity on taxes.

We also paid over $10,000 (almost 20 percent of our gross income) in taxes for our poor paint-less house and land. We paid $1000 to the town lawyer when he never talked to me, a woman landowner. We paid $500 to the tax collector who never talked to me nor tried to contact me in any way. We paid for the ad in the Addison Independent and I never have seen it.

I have suffered disillusionment in the cave called Monkton. The beautiful views blurred by an arrogant government which takes property in these hard times. I encourage all to question your town’s tax sale policies and the implications of the town taking a $300,000 property for $6,000 and humiliation on top.

I can now say I have been in the hall of shame and survived.

I pray others may survive and some may pursue legal fights in the cave of justice, the courthouse. I prefer the open fresh air of my backyard and typing in my friendly blog. Hoping I can influence the practice by towns of property land grabs. Hoping I can bring to light my main arguments against the new town hall in Monkton.

By the way, the town hall vote should not have been referred to as a postponement (by Addison Independent), but as a defeat for the folly of the Monkton officials.



Monkton needs to get its present house in order before building a new house. At the present town hall No one is falling over themselves, they are only open very part time. I prefer the smaller rooms so there are witnesses to conversations with some of the omniscient town officials. The blatant disregard for cost is evidenced by the lovely color design by the most expensive no-bid contractor. The lovely meeting rooms will not make the minutes get posted on the website so common folks like myself can read them. Nor will the price make the minutes understandable or specific (or I would have known my property was being sold).

The 1.5 million price tag is obscene when the town wants to rid itself of property owners, people like me who fall on hard financial times. I have anxiety about how long I will be able to work, who will want my property next. The town has ignored my pleas for abatement. The Secretary of State and Governor and Tax Commissioner are powerless to enforce all the statutes and rules. Only the local Town officials can correct the taking of land for small sums of money.

Or at least be accountable by working with a landowner prior to taking. Showing compassion in this difficult era of time.

If I took this to court, it would only shift the money to a lawyer. At $10,000, my reward would be eaten up and then some by most any lawyer. Ironically the town’s lawyer only wanted to sell high priced properties to make it worth his while. I am unable to affect any of these practices except by shining light on them to whoever will publish this. Also if I took the town to court, the town would use the same lawyer with the conflict to attack me and get paid to do it!

No, instead I will save the Townspeople’s money and I will publish on my blog as a completely unabridged version.



Fair warning to other women land owners. Your property could be sold by the town at their whim completely without your being informed. And no one will care. They will tell your husband or your Dad.

Have we come so far after all?



When I think of a modern utopia, My friend Herrad sums it up best,



“The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference.
He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.



If Plato had lived today, would he have gone to court?

Would the town have only told his wife and then put his family farm up for sale?

Would he have seen the folly in building a 1.5 million dollar building to process the foreclosure of the property of the weak, infirmed and those they want to eliminate from society?



Or would he have done, as I have and try to illuminate the issues in a public forum where all may read the sequel to the tax sale notice in the pay version of the newspaper I don’t read because I cannot afford it?



I like to think Plato would shutter to think of what is possible in “modern” society.

As a woman, I feel like we have not come far at all.



Anyone who cares to join me in protesting land grabs in these economic bad times, please write to anyone who will listen.

Please realize that when the town taxes you out of your home, it will be up to YOU to enforce the statutes, rules.



For the record, I wrote the Town of Monkton 3 times about tax abatement and they ignored, a posture that says, go ahead, take me to court.

I choose the path of light.

Do you see?



"Man, like a tree in the cleft of a rock, gradually shapes his roots to his surroundings, and when the roots have grown to a certain size, can't be displaced without cutting at his life." Oliver Wendell Holmes