County

Ada Voters Raise Canyon Tax

We noticed the community college election measure failed in Canyon County, but passed with enough margin in Ada County to create a passing grade in the two counties.

A Canyon County reader came up with this observation:

Can you please tell us how it is legal for Ada County and Canyon County voters to be lumped together as though they are a specific district, concerning the vote for community college? Canyon said no and Ada said yes.

Now we have Ada county imposing taxes on Canyon County!!! Canyon Co people do not have representation in Ada Co. Something smells to high heaven here. What’s this? The
new government as designed by Otter?

The short answer is the legislature created the “district”
subject to a vote of residents of both counties.

Comments & Discussion

Comments are closed for this post.

  1. Counties are created by legislation, not via a constitutional provision. There is nothing magical about county boundaries.

    Counties have been created and abolished throughout Idaho’s history, although it’s been awhile since it last happened. I believe the last big county change was when the huge county that encompassed Sun Valley, Twin Falls, etc., was broken apart.

    Similarly, the Legislature established a process for creating community colleges. This process is also in statute. The process was followed, and the votes passed it with almost 70% support.

    It’s been awhile since a community college was formed in Idaho, so I suppose some people think that this process is some kind of new thing. It’s not.

    The Legislature was actually asked to change the law to make it EASIER to create this community college. They refused.

    Personally, I do not like the property tax funding mechanism, but I don’t like the property tax funding mechanism for lots of stuff.

  2. Hey, maybe we should have a vote on whether emissions control checks should be implemented in some kind of pollution control district that encompasses both Ada and Canyon County. Do you think Ada County would be likely to do the same thing to their neighbors to the west — much like they “forced” them to locate a community college within the boundaries of 2C plate land? And that wouldn’t even require a property tax increase in either jurisdiction!

  3. Ada resident
    May 26, 2007, 2:59 pm

    To all you Canyon County folks – welcome to Ada County – the most highly taxed county in Idaho!

    We have been getting hosed so badly on our property taxes we thought we would share the pain with you!

    Anytime we can vote to raise somebody elses’ tax we’ll go for that.

  4. DeepThroat II
    May 27, 2007, 10:15 am

    Why complain about Ada County forcing its vote down Canyon County’s throat when, crunching the numbers, 13% of the registered voters have forced 87% of the rest of the registered voters in the Treasure Valley to pay higher property taxes for a government school district? As a percentage of eligible voters, the Democratic Minority Rule drops down to about 5% of the adult population who can vote controlling 95% of the rest of us.

    It seems the voting mechanism, a majority or super majority of those who showed up to vote determines the outcome, rather than a majority of super majority of those who are REGISTERED to vote, is in direct opposition to the concept of inherent individual rights in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The onus should not be on the NO voters to have to show up to continually protect themselves from the tax collector or from continual attempts at infringements upon their freedom of speech or freedom of religion or freedom of association but rather on the YES voters to show up as a majority or super majority of at least REGISTERED voters in a bond or tax election.

    My right to retain my private property from confiscation by a minority of the population should be inviolate. I should not have to “discover” secret “special elections” by “special interest” Pub Ed lobbyists who know how to manipulate Idaho’s Absentee Ballot mechanism for their own purposes in order to continually protect my assets from socialist exterior decoration projects.

    Clearly the political system is broken and legislation needs to be passed to prevent 5% or 10% of the population to “game” the system. The solution is not for more NO voters to show up to vote. The solution is that the NO voters shouldn’t have to show up to vote. The onus is on the YES voters to get a majority of REGISTERED voters to show up, not the other way around.

    Otherwise, let’s just throw out the Bill of Rights which is founded upon the concept of protecting infrginements upon inalienable rights rather than the granting of special privileges. The Constitution is a “prohibiting” document, not a “granting” document.

    Last Tuesday’s Community College election results are a direct violation of your private property rights in more ways than just Ada County voting Canyon County a property tax increase. Take it to its reductio ad absurdum and ask why 13% get to tax 87% of the population.

    DT II

  5. A few vocal members of the mob have rallied and won. . . Duped once again by the carpetbaggers and self professed ruling elite. In a dark alley they would be shot for robbery.

    Unfortunately it is true that in Idaho with its property tax and levy systems, a few of the horde are able to organize and rob us all. I guess with the apathetic and lethargic masses of “citizens” we now have, it could be argued that we all deserve exactly what we get.

    The drunken sailors at the assessors office have mandated that our humble thirteen year old house has appreciated “0nly” around ten percent THIS year but that our dusty, rocky, DRY, and smog enshrouded lot to which it clings is worth 54% more than it was last year. Maybe it is the adjoining new horse boarding operation with all its attendant new “fly habitat” that is driving this year’s inflation of our land rent to the masters. Or is it the yahoos that are building 450,000 to 1.5 million dollar particle board wonders within eye blight of our place? Sure, I’ll also be ecstatic to subsidize IDA PWR CO so they can more profitably buy and sell out of state power to the new houses.

    On this latest Com College scam, I’ll be ecstatic if the REAL levy IS only the propagandist touted eleven dollars and change per 100,000 instead of the allowable $125. Any bets on that happening? Kind of reminds of the year the sheeple imposed the sales tax to Save Our Schools and lower our property taxes. The property tax assessment were mysteriously late that year too.

  6. Hey Deepthroat: You either show up and vote for or against something or you don’t vote at all effectively removing yourself from participation. The people that didn’t vote obviously didn’t care enough make their voices heard and chose to allow others to make the decision for them.

    If you had it your way we would never have an election on anything because not enough people would show up to the polls. I voted for the community college district because I feel it is important for our community and am willing, in this instance, to pay up. If people are complaining about this topic but didn’t bother to vote then I don’t really feel sorry for them.

  7. Property taxes are how we pay for services around here. Maybe that needs to change; but until it does I will continue to participate in the process by voting for things that I think are necessary and against those that I don’t.

    For me, the community college was a necessary and appropriate service for the community. We could get bogged down in how to pay for that service while waiting for it to happen, but in this case I wasn’t willing to do that.

    EDITOR NOTE–Relax dude! You won and you got the supermajority. The system works.

  8. Deep Throat II
    May 29, 2007, 10:40 am

    To RiverCity:

    You missed the point. We are discussing concepts RE how things ought to be, not how they currently are, which is history. If one wants change, one does not reiterate the status quo but rather comes up with new ideas. Stay on subject, which is: how and why we need to change Idaho’s voting procedure.

    If one agrees that Democratic Majority Rule, according to some formula defining DMR, is a legitimate method of confiscating the property of others, then the recent Community College Absentee Ballot debacle may well point the way to a solution: vote by mail for everybody, as they do in Oregon. And since in Idaho one can register to vote at the polls, we should send vote by mail pamphlets not just to already registered voters but to all eligible voters. In this way, EVERYBODY gets to vote from home, not just those selected by a politically-targeted, well financed mailing campaign.

    As for your “ends justifying the means” rationale in which you think robbery by voting is OK and it’s just tough luck for those who refuse to play Pirates of the Caribbean, you should re-think your moral epistemology that just because the politicians made it “legal,” that doesn’t make it morally correct.

    DT II

  9. Sorry, I just get tired of this attitude some people have that if you don’t get the results you want then something must be wrong with the system. Believe me, living in Idaho I have to deal with a lot of results that I don’t agree with, but I never want to change the system just minds and attitudes of the people making the decisions.

  10. Ed, I think that DH is the one that you need to be telling to relax. Whew, what a post. I don’t even know where to begin, so I won’t.

  11. Jon, I don’t know why you would have dh relax. Everything he posted is true and was very well thought out and was entertaining to read. The reason you don’t know where to begin is you have no clue where you are… So you’re right in not even beginning.

    I would rather sit down to coffee and hash current events with a person like dh, than a button-up BOHICA.

  12. If the developers paid real impact fees, the bill to taxpayers would be less. Why shouldn’t new development help pay for the CC? Obviously they use the CC idea as a selling point for moving into their beige particle board ghetto cribs. Perhaps taxpayers could swallow the increase for civic amenities if the folks who benefit from the idea paid their share of the cost.
    The “high paying jobs” training really frosts my dog butt, like welding. You are lucky to get $10-12.00/hr at a trailer factory or some other metal fab job here in the Treasure Valley. That’s a high paying job? I guess those workers will need cheap housing and a Wal*Mart nearby to survive. Oh, I almost forgot the lucrative, “prison guard” job training. How are CC students supposed to afford transportation and parking fees at the Meridian complex with the local price of gas?
    Wouldn’t building a viable public transportation system make more sense than funding a CC? Now it will be harder to pass more tax levys to support public transit.

  13. Luddite, I agree, thank you. Sounds as though we could commiserate on the current sorry state of the state and many of her counties.

    An African dung beetle probably has a different vision of perfection than I do too. . .

    At one time I knew a J-O-N John. He had served a tour as an USAF Explosive Ordnance Demolition technician before he joined our unit. He was a clinical example of what happens when the human brain is exposed to too much over pressure (also referred to as concussion by laymen) from explosive detonations too many times. I’ve heard that oxygen deprivation from breathing too much smog can result in similar damage. So J-O-N, have you ever been in EOD?

  14. The name of the game is total non-representation of the people by local governments. Governments get as much tax payer monies from people as possible… using every trick in the book.

    That’s fairly easy when a majority of people in Ada/Canyon don’t vote,don’t know or care who their Reps are and ,in their own words ” are proud of it.” Gerrymmandering special districts, creating one-party requirments for the primary’s, or turning your own Bureaucratic creation into a money wasting useless construction hole i.e. ” CCDC” is very easy in view of the above.

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