Mayor Gray to Hold Ward 3 Meeting on City Budget April 4

Have concerns about the DC budget? Mayor Gray and key cabinet members will be holding a series of meetings with citizens ward by ward to present and discuss the budget. Here's the invitation from the Mayor's office to attend the one in Ward 3.

Greetings Ward Three Residents,

Please join Mayor Vincent C. Gray and your neighbors for an important presentation on our City's Budget.  Several key cabinet members and agency directors will be present to answer your questions regarding our community concerns.   This town hall meeting will be similar to the same one the Mayor hosted at Alice Deal last Spring. 

When:    Wednesday, April 4 - 6:30 to 8:30

Where:   AliceDeal Middle School

               3815 Fort Drive

We hope to see you there! 

Kindest regards,

Tom C. Smith

Ward 3 Liaison

Eexcutive Office of the Mayor

Are DC Property Taxes on Their Way Up?

With $175 million budget deficit, incoming Mayor Vincent Gray is going to have some difficult decisions to make among unpalatable alternatives. One of those alternatives is to raise property taxes. Not necessarily through an actual increase, but by way of restructuring the appeals process to make it more difficult for homeowners to appeal tax assessment increases.  This heads up about property taxes comes to us via the Cleveland Park Listserv:

I was reading an article that Vince Gray, the City Council Chairman, was looking at drastically re-working Board of Real Property Assessments and Appeals. In addition to costing us almost 2 million dollars in new administrative fees, it would also mean a de-facto increase in our property taxes --click here to read more. 

Did anyone catch Mr. Gray explaining this during the campaign? Is this seriously going to go through? I didn't see it any of his campaign literature. It would seem to me that during a deep economic recession would be the worst time to add more bureaucracy and to raise the costs on the tax-paying property owners that we have in the District.