Do you favor raising the real estate tax? Why or why not?

By Jimmy LaRoue

Published: May 5, 2008

Frank Lucente: No, no, no, because I think we pay too much taxes now.

DuBose Egleston, Jr.: Nobody’s in favor of raising taxes. I don’t know anybody in the city of Waynesboro that I could go to today that’s in favor of raising taxes. That being said, I will not raise taxes if elected without a very, very strong reason. And people say, ‘Well, you’re wishy-washy.’ Well, I can’t say something for four years from now, because I don’t know what the economy’s going to do. I think you’ve got to keep the city living within its means, but you’ve also got to provide services. If we’ve got to cut services, I want the public to understand what they are cutting, why’re they’re cutting it. We want to lower taxes. I think you’ve got to keep the assessments in line. I think the state Homestead Exemption Act will help homeowners lower their tax rate, but you’ve got to provide services.

Jeremy Taylor: No, I don’t, mainly because I’m a hard worker like our other citizens. I have four children and I pay enough taxes as it stands right now, and I know our community feels that way. I will be honest with you, though. We need to make sure that we don’t let our infrastructure decay, and that requires some investment. And I think if we do that reasonably on an ongoing kind of basis, then we’re not going to have to face any kind of dramatic increases, and actually, what we’re going to do is make it easier on people in the long run, because if you keep up with that kind of thing, we can foster a more stable, long-term, lower tax rate, because we haven’t put ourselves in the position where we have to deal with emergencies, because it’s emergencies that cause us to have to throw up our hands and say, ‘oh, do we have to raise taxes this year?’