Editor:
It seems like the only time anybody ever focuses closely upon the operations of our county government is during election season. This is the one time of the year, I suppose, that our elected officials have to be accountable for their actions.
So, let me ask County Treasurer Nick Barborak a question: Have you learned anything yet about the rights of taxpayers in Columbiana County? Have you learned anything about how to properly value agricultural property?
Oh, how I remember the cavalier attitude that Mr. Barborak displayed two short years ago when I fought to have my tree farm properly qualified under the Ohio program known as Current Agricultural Use Value. Representing the County Board of Revisions, Mr. Barborak fought hard to stick me with a property tax bill that was 10 times what the law said it should have been.
It took an appeal all the way to the Common Pleas Court, at great personal expense to me, to get Mr. Barborak straightened out. And the judge struck him down on every count, spare none.
Is this what the county’s taxpayers can expect of you, Mr. Barborak, in your first elected term as county treasurer? With delinquent taxes up to an all-time high, why not go after the folks who legitimately owe the county tax payments?
And by the way, Nick, is it true that you are still practicing law while the taxpayers are paying you to be a full-time county treasurer? If that isn’t a conflict of interest, then I don’t know what is.
Time for a change in the county treasurer’s office.
David Coldwell
Salineville, Ohio
I’m also trying to get on cauv. but last 5 years
I always seem to do something wrong. will you please guide me to a good attorney?? as you will soon see in the paper they have just sent me a foreclosure notice in regardes to two of my propertes . Larry