And yet Dave - its you and your fellow Kooch County residents that vote the same people in time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time (keep going... for a WHILE) and time again.

These aren't NEW commissioners. These aren't fresh rookies that have betrayed your trust at the first sign of trouble. All but one can pretty much be considered seasoned, and two can be considered beyond salty.

Bottom line - the majority of your neighbors just don't care. They'll sit there and let it happen. A handful may make statements at a county board meeting, or call up your commissioner to complain, but anything that could be called a majority will never happen.

Yet at the same time - you will complain about property taxes without realising that somone has to pay for the services that the residents ask for and need. And when the majority of these services are offset by money from the state - it makes it real difficult to balance budgets when that money gets reduced or cut all together.

And if they cut services to keep from raising taxes - then your editorial would be replaced by someone complaining that their elected officials aren't looking out for them because their program got cut.

It's called an economic downturn, a recession, or even a depression for a reason. No one has to like it - but we all have to live with it.

If you think your commissioners have control - then actually do something more constructive then write a letter to the editor complaining about something YOU KNOW you can't control - and perhaps rally your fellow Kooch residents to change the status quo.

Oh - and when you get taxed out of your "shoreline" property. Let me know what sort of large, inflated, six figure sum you get for it. So I can cry on the inside for you.

Thanks, Dave, from a summer resident whose taxes went up 32% -- just slightly more that the 12% that the law deems excessive. All the good work that Arne Carlson, a great Republican who was not seeking national office, did for Minnesota during his two productive terms has pretty much been undone by our current no-tax governor, who has decided that it will help him nationally to force other taxing jurisdictions to do what he has decided not to. So in the meantime our public universities are overpriced -- fine for us who work in the private sector -- our lake shore is becoming overtaxed -- fine if your goal is to make lakeshore unavailble to anyone but the Richard Burke's of the world.
We like sheep have been led astray and, like sheep, we bought the no new tax message as though it really meant no new taxes. So thanks, Dave. For someone who spends about 60-70 nights a year on Rainy, the daily taxes amount to about the price of a four-star hotel in Paris. Throw in the electric bill and we have paid for the airfare to get to Paris. Imagine how it feels to those poor suckers who enjoy Rainy Lake two weeks each year. It begins to look like the Ovesons are the winners after all.
I only have one heir and I hope he gets a good job because the gift I am going to give him some day is not quite the gift he thinks it is going to be.