Seniors feel appeals made statement on taxes

Molly Ball

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005 | 9:26 a.m.

When more than 800 senior citizens filed appeals of their property assessments last month to protest their high taxes, the board that decides such cases braced for days of hearings stretching long into the evening.

As it turned out, the board dispatched nearly half of the appeals in about an hour on Tuesday because only four people out of 402 showed up to make their cases.

Dan Roberts, publisher and editor of the Vegas Voice senior newspaper, who orchestrated the protest campaign, said he considered the group's statement had been made when the appeals were filed.

"To go there (to the hearing) would just be an exercise in futility," he said.

"We filed 863 appeals, and then I testified to the Legislature and we submitted more than 2,500 petitions," Roberts said. "We got the attention of the state lawmakers."

What the suffering seniors want is a change in the law to reduce the tax burden that some say threatens to force them out of their homes.

Since the Clark County Board of Equalization is bound to follow the law, it can only reduce the taxes of people whose properties have been assessed at a value greater than what the properites really could sell for. It can't give lower taxes to people just because they have tales of financial woe.

That was the case for 74-year-old Bill Cozad, a retired builder from Southern California who moved to Las Vegas in 1991 and purchased his dream house in Henderson's Sun City Anthem in 2003.

"I'm happy with the house. It's exactly what I want," Cozad told the board. "But I want to keep it too!"

Cozad said he was already paying $750 a month in property taxes, and that was before his house's value jumped nearly 10 percent in the last assessment. Other homeowners say they've seen increases of as much as 50 percent.

Cozad told the board he blamed real-estate speculators for driving up prices in last year's housing boom. He said he'd seen a similar situation in California and expected a similar result.

"I got out of California because they were taxing me out of the place," he said. "I suppose we'll end up here with the same Proposition 13 setup we had in California."

The specter of Proposition 13, the 1978 California ballot initiative that cut property-tax revenues in half and was blamed for a statewide fiscal crisis, looms over the property tax debate. It represents angry homeowners' threat to take drastic measures if the Legislature doesn't adequately address the issue.

The board told Cozad they couldn't help, and he took defeat philosophically. "I'm just here to let them know that people are upset," he said afterward.

Not every appellant lost on Tuesday, however. In fact, as many as 100 people may have benefited from a 20 percent discount the board granted to Sun City Aliante residents whose homes abut Cheyenne Avenue between Rampart and the Las Vegas Beltway.

They can thank Mark and Sharon Collins, who told the board how the house that in 1997 backed up to a dirt road now borders a noisy, busy, multilane artery.

"We don't even sleep in the master bedroom," said 63-year-old Sharon. "We sleep in the guest room and close the door and it's half tolerable."

"The realtor told us we'd have to sell it to someone who's hard of hearing or deaf," added 64-year-old Mark.

That's the kind of tangible factor that actually makes a house worth less than others of its size in its neighborhood. The assessment that found the house's value increasing from $151,000 to $215,000 in a single year, a 42 percent rise, was off the mark because in truth, the house was practically unsaleable, they argued.

The Collinses say they can't afford higher taxes because their main source of income is Mark's disability payments. He has Parkinson's disease.

The couple said they hoped more would be done to reduce the property-tax burden. A legislative committee took up the issue last week and heard much impassioned testimony on the dimensions of the crisis.

On Tuesday, legislators were looking at some of the effects reduced government revenue might have by considering public entities' debt management strategies.

A passel of plans are still on the table, with the Clark County Assessor backing a plan that would cap annual increases at 6 percent and various lawmakers and groups touting various other ideas. There is no consensus as yet about which way to go

Roberts, the newspaper publisher, said his followers are willing to accept, "holding our noses," the 6 percent proposal, "but if that's not done we will endorse the Proposition 13 plan," he said.

Filing 863 assessment appeals accomplished what it was supposed to, Roberts said, but lawmakers had better act fast.

"It was a symbolic gesture and it worked," he said. "Now, they're not ignoring it -- but nothing is being done about it."