Editors Note: This column was originally published in the Aug. 16, 2023 issue of the Chronicle Progress.
Written by Kelli Anderson
California does it right.
The weather, the vibe…the property taxes. California, in 1975, passed Prop 13, which limited yearly property tax increase to no more than 2%, where the total could be only 1% of the assessed value, plus whatever taxes were needed to fund voter- approved bonds.
A stark contrast to the increased property taxes owners around the county have been hit with…some, according to transparent.utah.gov, have increased as much as nearly 400%.
Is this reasonable?
While perhaps in the past property owners of our humble county have not given much thought to these increases (although perhaps some have!), many more are now in disbelief at the astounding rate at which our taxes have increased over the past two years. This, in addition to the steeply rising cost of literally everything else.
It feels impossible to get ahead.
This is not to blame our new county tax assessor, who is merely adhering to the current tax laws. On the one hand, these increases do benefit education… but may be devastating in a lot of other areas and to individuals, including those on a fixed income who are already dealing with record inflation.
This is not to blame actually anyone…except maybe ourselves. Maybe we have been too quiet, too submissive, too accepting of whatever comes our way from the powers that be. All, of course, with solid reasoning, justification, and some sort of good intent toward the people.
But at what cost?
A cost that may be bigger than dollars. The cost is in the lost of individual to authority, in free thinking and discourse, in blindly accepting that we have no power over the very entity whose function is actually to serve us…not the other way around.
At some point, we gave our power over to authority and stopped questioning. No matter how much it hurt.
Personally, I was hit with a large bill from the city a couple of years ago. The bill was for tying into the city’s water system, though I actually had tied into my existing pipes, at no cost to the city. When I questioned said bill, I was told i had to pay it because that was the policy. When I pressed further, I was told that I had to pay this because I was using more water. Isn’t that usage reflected on my increased bill? I asked. It doesn’t matter, that’s just how it is was the answer. I paid thousands of dollars then, and have continued to pay for my increased water usage every month since.
I merely accepted that that’s just the way things were. I questioned, but not to the point of contention, and, looking back, I wonder how many others have done the same.
I wonder how many of us, just trying to survive and stay afloat, are just accepting of the way things are, even in the midst of it becoming harder and harder…seemingly by the very entities that exist to protect us.
How many of us have just given up? And why?
I come not with solutions I seek but questions, because power is in the masses, and only when the masses speak up will things change: why are we just accepting what we are told? Why are we not fighting against with what we don’t agree? Why are we, many times, not even allowed to question the authority figures whose jobs exist to protect us?
How do you boil a frog?
Lastly, how does that answer to that last question relate to our current state?
Kelli Anderson is a journalism teacher at Delta High School.
