City council lowers tax rate…

Read the whole story on the RTD and tell us how it affects you.

Some tidbits via the RTD:

The problem is that $100,000 houses are getting harder to find in Richmond, testified more than a dozen speakers who said soaring assessments have raised their taxes so high they may have to leave the city.

“We can’t put the city into fiscal crisis because we want to please everybody,” said 5th District Councilman E. Martin Jewell, who favored the $1.25 rate proposed by Wilder as a more gradual way to ease the tax burden.

Sentiment to cut the rate lower than $1.23 appeared to have waned after city finance officials told council members at the end of last week that tax revenues would be $1.3 million lower each year because of higher than expected tax credits for rehabilitating properties. The city also reported a shortfall of $1.6 million a year in tax relief available for elderly and disabled residents with low incomes and few assets other than their homes.