April Commission Meeting 2025

(a report from April)

I've been attending the Sullivan County Commission meetings for several months. There was an "item" defeated last night that the Commissioner sponsoring it (Cheryl Harvey) thought would mean that the county would not be giving ANY money to ANY non-profits for the year. So I put this in here mostly to give anyone involved with not-for-profits a heads up.

Her proposal, if I am reading it correctly, was to put $200k in the budget to be granted through a committee to not-for-profits in the coming budget year. It read to me as a cap, as a "we won't be giving more than that", and in at least one of her sales pitches for it, she noted how much less that was than the county had granted in some previous year. A close vote defeated this item and frankly I'm not sure what the pros and cons even were. I bring it here now because, according to Ms. Harvey, this defeat means that the county will not be granting ANY money to ANY not-for-profit in the next budget year.

 

I can't imagine that that is what it means -- an item being defeated would seem to mean that whatever the previous procedure was would still be in place. But she was adamant and was quite upset.

 

I apologize that I haven't quite found the "voice" with which to write these meetings up. I had the idea of being "factual", "journalistic", but the thing I am most struck by is how STUPID so many of these people are. Ms. Harvey is not stupid, but her item was not well written, was not clear, did not cover all the bases, and she was not prepared to answer pertinent questions about it. Likewise, there has been a citizen (Victoria Hunt) at several meetings who has spoken against ANY non-profit getting ANY money from the county, and whatever it is she is saying has not made one lick of sense. There is one commissioner, Jessica Means, who is a full-on conspiracy theorist about everything, including that LED lights are causing brain damage, so that she attempted to defeat the schools replacing fluorescents with LEDs, although doing so will save $70K/year. I have yet to hear her speak a complete sentence. At least Joe Carr doesn't say anything.

 

I won't skip the main bone of contention in last night's meeting: the county property reassessment. There is a lot of "heartburn" about how much assessment went up. A few points. Reassessment is by law a revenue-neutral event, so the rate WILL go down. The "ratio" changed and I don't know what that means but evidently it will be affecting tax relief for the elderly. The assessor was VERY reluctant to release this figure but pushed by Commissioners did say that the percentage of increase across all types of property (residential, commercial, etc.) was 64%. They are having hearings and adjusting assessments daily: look up what comparable parcels near yours sold for, bring evidence, and make your argument. From now on, reassessments will be done every two years instead of every four years.