ashe

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Just roll with the flow, enjoy the free bubble up and rainbow stew!!!!

I don't think the four lanes is going to help the county very much. It might of helped 20 years ago before so much of our industry left, but building it now will not make much of a difference.

If GE is still in the county in 15 years I'll be surprised, I doubt they make it 10 more years. I know they wouldn't say that just my general feel of the situation. Once 3D printing is advanced enough they won't need that plant, everything will be made with printers as they are cheaper to employ than humans. (This isn't unique to GE or even to this county, half the jobs that exist today in the country, probably will not exist in 20-25 years due to technological advancements, this includes manufacturing, construction, cashiers, etc.)

I wasn't advocating closing the Airport just stop putting more capital we don't have into it. Leasing it out or privatizing it might be a viable solution. You have to look at ROI and well the airport's ROI is well poor.

We have an aging population in the county. Without the hospital people would not get to emergency care in time. Without it no business would consider building here. Tourists would not want to come. We need to start thinking farther ahead, if we don't we will never overcome the county's poverty level. We need something that will want tourists to come to Ashe County every year. We as a county can survive without an airport, we can't survive without the hospital.

With Mount Jefferson, New River, and Elk Knob all nearby you'd think we'd be a sure destination, but these parks are underutilized. The state of NC does not invest much in its state parks (Virginia does much better). However there are successful state parks in the county, Stone Mountain for example, however Stone Mountain has the State Park portion and then the much better maintained and utilized private section that makes it a success.

I wouldn't shut the airport down. I would lease it or sell it, get it off the books and tell the dot to kiss our ***.

Dog, I was apoplectic after my one and only curiosity visit to the dump. Unfortunately it is illegal to shoot engineers in North Carolina. Otherwise I would have shot several over the years - one in particular for delivering a WWTP filter that was 80% smaller than the contract.

Now I used to be the Executive Director of an Airport Authority in NC. An airport can be a money hole but when it comes to physical activity and projects the local match was about 5% IIRC with NC DOT pumping the Federal money into the project as well as the State match. I didn't read that Alleghany was supporting an Airport.

If I never hear the acronym PAPI or the word T-Hanger again in my life I will be happy. Don't even begin to talk about cutting the **** grass.

But here's the thing, a man from Commerce and from DOT would pop up to keep, defend, and promote that airport at all cost. That's the State of NC applying direct pressure around the elected board to management. The message was no airport, no economic development help.

Now you could not pay me to fly into Ashe County other than a few months out of the year. But I guarantee you that GE has said they need that airport and folks using private aviation make contributions to State political offices.

It is what it is and Ashe is too small and too dependent on the State to every say no to the State of NC.

We bought a bunch of expensive land around the dump a few years ago and we damaged some neighbors properties. We also got into a lawsuit out at the dump. Running our own dump with a county this small is very expensive. We may have been better off hauling it down the mountain.

Reading the Ashe budget is near impossible. Designed that way I suppose.

Dog, Allegany spent $1,302 per person last year while Ashe spent $1,459. That's a difference of $157 per person. Some of that difference is directly attributable to having 3,000 more poor people and for having over twice as many kids in schools. Economy of scale is difficult in a county like Ashe.

Also, I think Alleghany may have spent $829 K more than what they actually advertise based on the way the show their garbage collection transfer stations as a separate fund but not specifically as an Enterprise fund. Ashe is a little loose when it comes to not appearing to comingle and report GF and EF funds as one and the same so when you read Ashe's total amount they have an Enterprise Fund of $2.6 million.

Now that' 213% more than what Alleghany spends on what should be a comparable fund.

Does that reflect the cost of garbage being higher in Ashe? Smarter management of garbage in Alleghany? Better demographics in Alleghany? I don't know. But if the $829 K is discreeted out of the Alleghany budget that's $75 a person right there - just on the presentation of the numbers - I don't know - I would have to read the Alleghany budget closely and reading Ashe's is a pain in the ***.

After talking to people away from here about their property taxes, I realized we are insane to not copy SC's system of allowing counties to tax nonresident properties at a higher rate than local homes. After hearing what these people are paying in taxes where they are from, we could double their property tax here and they would still think it's a bargain.

Ocm you misunderstood or I was not clear enough. I was not comparing our values to Alleghany. Our values are based on sales. You take that value and compare it to sales in other counties. Yes a 300K home in Ashe can be compared to other counties home values/tax rate. Counties around us with almost twice the population have budgets per capita much less than Ashe. We spend a heck of an amount on dss.

You wait and watch values explode when the 4 lane is complete.

Just at a quick glance, Alleghany is younger, richer, and much smaller than Ashe:

Population - just 11.1K in Alleghany, 27.2 K in Ashe

Median age - just 43 in All., 45.5 in Ashe (that is **** old)

Poverty - just 17.2 in All., 18.1% in Ashe

Now when you extrapolate the poverty numbers the difference is: 1978 people under the poverty line in Alleghany and 4,952 in Ashe.

Raw population is 145% higher in Ashe. Poverty population is 150% higher in Ashe.

Dog, I don't think real estate in Alleghany is comparable to Ashe. Sparta is not a destination, Boone and BR are the destination in this area and the values radiate out from there no matter how much local tax departments try to tweak them. It's akin to having property in proximity to Pinehurst, or Wrightsville Beach, etc., or Raleigh or Charlotte, all things being equal, value is related to the proximity of the gravitational center of the center point - like orbiting a star. Now to say a $40 million budget is high - what is that based on? Per person spending? To compare apples to apples you have to look at the full package of services with the big one being education - what does it cost to run the schools in Alleghany as compared to Ashe? How much does the Alleghany population use Social Services as compared to Ashe? That has to be worked out before you compare.

UD2, you are correct in that those are all good things. In the 20+ years I have been in Ashe I have actually been to hospital for blood work. You know what, I paid for those services.

That hospital is much more than just jobs, it is the mother ship so to speak of the ems, it operates an emergency room that without citizens would have to travel an average of 45 minutes to an ER. They have an OB department that I only hear good things about and out of county citizens are using them.

Now ocm the values of property are quite high in this county compared to other counties. The reason our tax rate is so low is these high values. The tax boys went wild 4 years ago raising values and this year they had no such sales to fall back on. Alleghany county took a nose dive in their northeast corner around the river. A 40 million dollar budget for a county our size is quite high.

OCM, what you say makes sense but still does not show any proof of economic benefit for the county. Our much disparaged airport actually has a DOT study that shows the direct, secondary and tertiary benefits of such an installation. The hospital should be self supporting and not a drain on the tax dollar, after all the law of the land is everyone must have insurance. I am sure you have see such studies as the DOT produces for the airport. I have actually read that one and as an engineer can tell you it is flawed when used to show the economic benefit for Ashe. The same goes for a study I found on the economic benefits of a rural hospital. These give a generic answer that does not hold water when applied to specific cases. I actually think it is a good thing that we have a hospital, I just have never seen economic justification for tax payer support. I have actually asked two of our commissioners this question and they were not even aware of the DOT study.

The hospital is one of the few sources of good jobs in the County - a place where the salary is above subsistence allowing the employee to spend money in the County on discretionary items and services. This race to the bottom to give Wal-Mart a property tax break is insane. Ashe County has low tax rates and low appraised values. If you lose the hospital you will lose those jobs, and when the employee replaces his or her job, they may move out of the count.

Now I am sure that someone will immediately point out someone they know that works at AMH who lives out of the County, but even if they do, when they drive into Ashe they spend some money here.

Low property tax rates and a low level of service serves the interests only of large commercial property owners and absentee landowners. If your house and land is appraised at 300K a 5 cent increase in your property taxes is $150 a year.

I wish someone would explain to me dumping 1.7 million in a landing strip that has absolutely no impact on the county. It would take a book to explain the impact the hospital has on the county. Maybe start with the EMS.

Wish some one would explain how the hospital speaks for itself. Everyone just says we need a hospital but no one has yet shown economic proof that it benefits the county to the point that we are paying a half a mil a year for three years. Where's the Beef?

It was pointed out here that was bull**** when they made that claim trying to pass the sales tax. And watch, that sales tax will be in the general fund next year and not going to the hospital

Basking if I remember hearing correctly the county fund balance was at 30+ percent. It has regenerated itself. The state requires at least an 8 percent fund balance. They have been dipping in past years to balance the budget but the fees have been replenishing it.

I am glad at least one of you remember the idiot mouth breathers telling us to vote for the sales tax increase and taxes would not be raised.