Comments on: Patti Garrett Proposes Citizen Board To Help Residents With Tax Relief

By: SAACJack

SAACJack — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:30:50 +0000

Anyone for getting back to the actual topic ie what the candidate suggested?

Anyone?

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:49:04 +0000

Patti’s not proposing a homestead exemption because, as she spells out in her blog post, Decatur has the maximum amount allowed by law. Her proposal is for a volunteer advisory and assistance board to serve as a resource for seniors and others looking to pursue a possible reduction of their appraisal from the DeKalb assessor’s office.

You can find what she’s actually suggesting here: http://votepattigarrett.wordpress.com/

By: Decatur mom

Decatur mom — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

You mean the one Patti is proposing is age- and income-dependent, or the ones we already grant are both age- and income-dependent?

By: Decatur mom

Decatur mom — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:37:31 +0000

Public schools are supported by taxes on all the citizenry. If they were only supported by those with children, that would be tuition and would make those private schools. In fact, we do have many parents who do pay tuition to send their children to Decatur schools. As a society, we all benefit from an educated citizenry, whether or not we have children who attend those schools. And the reputation of the schools has, in my opinion, fueled the increase in property values.

I question Judd Owen’s calculations. I do think our school taxes are much higher than anyone elses in the state. In Decatur, the city owns the schools.

If I’m DM, I wasn’t hitting the bottle early, my friend.

If y’all think paying for good public schools is expensive and not worth it, go examine the property values in Clayton County and other places with troubled public schools.

By: Lyn

Lyn — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:32:14 +0000

Just wanted to comment on the statement that “very few single people live in Decatur.” Actually demographic data indicates that 39.8% of Decatur’s households are characterized as single person households. That’s compared to 22.9% for the metro area and 26.3% nationally. A third of the city’s population is between 25 and 45.