What does being the poorest, most marginalized, and unrepresented group of people in Tompkins County make you?
The perfect victim.
The “greater good” has given way to “importance” – an importance that not only demands recognition; but that counts everything and everyone else as unimportant. Lansing’s rural poor have been consigned to unimportance through the influence of powerful, and “important,” Agricultural and Collegiate interests: Their very existence remains unmentioned in planning documents – even in the policies that target and marginalize them.
The “greater good” has become a tool, not only to eliminate the worth of rural residents: but to expunge their very existence.
In the County’s most recent “Vision of Our Future”; the rural community no longer exists.
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A few years ago: when a nearby home was being sold – I was curious about the sale. The listing claimed that it had been in one family for 50 years. I remember the times I passed by and seeing the front porch half-filled with firewood; and half family members. It was the kind of rural subsistence home that was not trashy; but everywhere in need of unaffordable maintenance. A home that was not at risk from bank payments; but from the one-two punch of the rising assessments/rising taxes tag team that has KO’d rural Lansing.
The listing sat unsold for 6 months at its assessed value; and the assessors came around again and upped the assessment another twenty percent. It finally sold for a price that in no way reflected the official judgement.
I was able present this situation to the County Assessment Director at a public meeting; and he replied:
“We always find that when a house sells for less than the assessed value; the owner is hiding something from us.” It’s the sort of self-serving statement that populates every poorly attended, meaningless public meeting.
Tompkins County Assessors claim they are not political; but then, neither is greed.