Cody

sossamon

LEDGER PUBLISHER

Not a day goes by that I don’t hear a disparaging word about Cherokee County.

While I’m quick to defend, I must confess that I, too, have made derogatory comments about this place I call home.

No place is perfect, now is it?

Many of the things I hear being said about Cherokee parrot the same theme: This kind of thing only happens here.

As I freely admit, we do have our shortcomings, but we do not have a monopoly on questionable behavior, be it from our elected officials or the general public.

Don’t believe me?

The next time you’re in another part of the country or world, pick up a newspaper and read about what’s going on in that neck of the woods.

I did just that on a recent trip to Washington, D.C.

Headline: Loudon cuts tax rate; average bill rises $464.

Sound familiar?

The story dealt with rising real estate assessments in Northern Virginia and how elected officials there are trying to soothe anxious homeowners.

Headline: 10-year feud degenerates in Delaware: mayor arrested (again), council changing locks as town tempers flare.

This story was just too good not to read! The mayor, a resident and even the police chief have a running feud that started when the resident — the mayor’s neighbor — got upset about the mayor’s kids running through his lawn.

The mayor has been accused of slapping his neighbor and even trying to run him down with a pickup.

The police chief arrested and handcuffed the mayor on both occasions. The swift justice, I’m sure, had nothing to do with the mayor trying to do away with his town’s police force.

Despite all his trouble with the mayor, the resident, like most of us, loves his town.

“I love it here. It’s a real nice area with a lot of really nice people.”

Headline: D.C. plays hardball with its children.

This story was about how the city of Washington, D.C. is dealing with an ever-increasing strain on the recreation budget. Their solution is to charge any group that is not a part of the recreation department $25 per hour for lights on ballfields.

The article goes on to explain, however, that the city has $1.2 billion in extra cash, including a $318 million surplus for fiscal 2004.

These are just a few examples of the strange happenings and goings-on in another part of the country.

The story about the tax increase caught my eye as we are facing that same possibility here. It was also interesting because I recently transferred the title of a car to my daughter who lives in Columbia, which means she now has to pay the taxes.

The county and school taxes here were $145 and one official estimated the city taxes would have been about $60. The Richland County/Columbia taxes on that car were $269 or about 32 percent higher than here.

Not too long ago we published an article comparing taxes in Cherokee County to other locations in the Southeast.

The results were about the same as this comparison to Richland County — our taxes are not as high as most other places.

But if you listen to general conversations you’d think the tax man is getting more than his pound of flesh from us.

The same is true for the ‘talk’ about the day-to-day operations of our county, cities and schools — “they wouldn’t do it like that somewhere else.”

Or about some of the behavior of some residents — “that could only happen here.”

I’m not saying I like to pay taxes, that our government officials never make mistakes or that we don’t have some ‘colorful’ characters in our midst.

I don’t, they do and we do.

What I am saying is that Cherokee County is no worse than anywhere else in most of the areas that count and a lot better in a number of ways.

Do a little comparison shopping and see for yourself.

(Cody Sossamon is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger. You can contact him via e-mail at cody@gaffneyledger.com.)