How tax increase means fewer jobs

I am semiretired and live in Wayne. I am 70 years old and my wife I have a home that is on four acres in Kane County. We had our kids ask us about raising a couple of horses, so we planned an agricultural building that would enable this to happen.

I recently paid for an architect to draw up the plans for a building, $1,500, that I intended to use partially as a horse barn and also a place to work on my personal vehicles. I had all of my plans in action. I paid $100 to village for permit, I paid the county health department $65 for their approval and I had my contractor all ready with the insurance, crews were set, bill of material, everything all ready to go. The building value would have ended up at about $90,000 and would have kept five men busy for at least six weeks.

Then I received my 2010 tax bill for more than $22,000. Looking back at my 2010 (2009) taxes, I paid $18,000 and I even received a notice last fall from Kane County that my tax assessment would be going down. After receiving my tax bill, I went to the county and they told me that I was reassessed and my property was all of a sudden worth more. Horse pucky! It is not worth more. It should have gone down like they said, that is the current market. After this visit with the county, I went and talked to some of my neighbors. They have the same issues.

Back to my planned building, I am stopping construction dead in its tracks. I am not going to give the county or the state any reasons to increase my taxes. This means that all the men that would have been working for at least six weeks won’t have this opportunity. I’m done.

I realize that the state and county is struggling for money, but I don’t think that they are doing the right things to get the jobs back and the economy moving. This ultimately will destroy our community.

Gary Heflen

Wayne