Mt. Washington Poly Student Makes Good

Brambleton Road's own Emma Call was named one of 40 finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search. Her project is entitled "Self-Assembling Three-Dimensional Microcontainers for Cell Encapsulation."

Back when I was a boy, we didn't have these fancy self assembling jobs and we had to assemble them ourselves!

Great Job, Emma! And congrats to proud parents Jeff and Diane.

You can read about this in the Sun HERE.

Are You Still Getting the Examiner?

A few months ago, the Examiner went missing. Did you notice? I used to hear from lots of neighbors most of whom were having problems getting delivery stopped. Well, it seems to have stopped all right. Totally. I haven't seen any in Mt. Washington in months.

So tell me--Are YOU still getting the Examiner? Email me HERE.

New MWIA Newsletter Out Now

Keep an eye on the mailbox--you should see your new MWIA Newsletter shortly.

Can't wait? Click HERE for the electronic version.

In other news, the members of the Park Committee met last night. We are moving forward in a very deliberate way. Our next step will be a meeting to bring all of the immediate neighbors up to date on what we are learning about what people want in their new park. Do you have questions or ideas? Let me know by email, or call me at 410-963-7718.

Examiner Picks Up Assessment Story

The Baltimore Examiner's lead article this morning was on one of our favorite new topics. You can read the article HERE.

The good news is that my quotes are accurate. The bad news is that my name's not "Adam." The worse news is that I'm not 30 anymore. :(

City Council Kills Amusement Bill

The Sun reported that the City Council sent the bill that would have doubled the number of so-called amusement devices in city bars and taverns back to committee. This bill would have effectively doubled the number of illegal video poker and slot machines in the City. I would speculate that this bill will not re-emerge from the Land Use committee. I frankly cannot understand how this bill was voted out of committee in the first place.

I blogged about this earlier, and I wrote to the members of the City Council pointing out that the bill only served special interests and did nothing for the people of Baltimore. I copied newly-elected State Comptroller Peter Franchot. My guess is that once people remembered that Franchot had vowed to pursue these illegal machines, supporters decided it was better to keep a low profile.

The Sun article is HERE.

Messenger Article on Tax Assessment Meeting

The Baltimore Messenger covered the MWIA tax assessment meeting in the upcoming issue. The article published on the web yesterday. Here is the LINK. The article mentions the Mayor's point of view on the tax rate. Also, I had a conversation with a woman living near Belvedere Square who stated that her assessment doubled. We are far from alone on this.

What to do with that new tax assessment

Last night's MWIA-sponsored meeting on the new tax assessments was very well attended with the entire MWES gym packed with concerned residents. As you know, assessments recently were mailed out and we all saw dramatic increases in the tax assessments on our homes.

I will tell you this: I have never seen people go so quickly from boasting about how much their houses have appreciated to insisting that they are really not that valuable. Myself included.

There are a few key things that you should know if you were unable to attend last night.

1) In looking at your Assessment Notice, your OLD value is in box 4. Your NEW value is in box 7. But be aware that the assessment goes up in three yearly increments during the 3-year cycle. So you won't jump to that box 7 value until 2009.

2) There are caps in place that will prevent your tax bill from rising too rapidly. The City caps the increase at 4% per annum, with the State assessment base capped at 10%. So if you had a box 4 value of $100,000, this number will only rise to $104,000 in 2007. Of course, this happens every year. The City taxable assessment for 2007 is shown in box 1 (up 4%) and the State taxable assessment for 2007 is shown in box 2 (up 10%).

3) The REALLY important thing here is the City Tax rate. Currently, we are taxed by the City at a rate of $2.28 per $100 in assessed value. The State property tax rate is only $0.112 per $100, so hardly matters. For example, a home with a box 1 value of $150,000 will be hit with a property tax of $3,420 ($150,000 times $0.0228 is the easy way to figure it).

4) Bear in mind, though, that the Box 1 value is only for 2007. It will go up each year by 4%. The compounding can be pretty brutal. A 4% increase compounds to an increase of 48% over ten years.

5) If you bought your house within 6 months of January 1, 2007, you do NOT get the benefit of the caps and will be required to pay the tax against the new assessed value seen in box 8. This will be particularly painful.

6) Should you sell your house, the new owner will be required to pay taxes at the full new assessed value seen in box 10. This will be a huge number and will certainly cause people to have trouble making monthly payments and will lead to lower selling prices as monthly costs (principal, interest, and taxes combined) get too large. Since you can't control the tax rate, the principal amount (your selling price) has to go down.

In my case, my tax bill for last year was $3,384. Yes, it's astronomical, but I was prepared for that when I bought my house. Next year, my tax bill will increase to $3,519--a 4% increase. Again, I can live with that. The City has to deal with inflation, and I can live with this reality. However, if I were to sell my house tomorrow, the new owners would be required to pay annual property taxes of $7,874, or $656 per month. Clearly this would make it harder for me to sell my house.

So what are the flaws in this system?

1) The process is defined by law and does not have a lot of flexibility. In this case, the numbers were gathered during a period of extremely high pricing. This has since passed and according to local appraiser and Arden Road neighbor Bob Cuschner average selling prices fell 12.7% in the one year ending September 30, 2006. Fourth quarter data is not yet available. It is possible that we were all over-appraised by this 12.7%, but since the process is defined by law it doesn't seem that there is much to be done.

2) The real problem is the City tax rate. This gets us into a big city revenue debate, but suffice it to say that at $2.28 per $100, the City is far, FAR higher than any other county in Maryland. This falls to the City Council and the Mayor of the City of Baltimore to resolve.

And finally, what should you do about it?

1) If you think you have a shot at an appeal, go for it. Really. What you want to do is turn your Assessment Notice over and begin the appeal process. Submit a written request for your "Property Worksheet" and the "Sales Analysis/Listing." Include a request for a Personal Hearing with an Assessor (Option #2) in an "alternate location" on a Saturday. The idea is that when enough people do this, they will do them all in one local location on one day.

2) Talk to your neighbors living in similar homes. You may find that there are some disparities. You can also pay $1 and get a worksheet from a comparable property that you specify.

3) Talk to your City Councilman. In this case, that would be Rikki Spector. I have a few comments about what she had to say last night, and I'll try to publish those later today.

The good news here is that our houses have moved up in value. The bad news should now be obvious. I think at the very least we now have good reason to raise our expectations of our City government.

If in reading this posting, you have corrections you want to make, please let me know. And I am not an accountant, so if you have any doubts, you should talk to a real CPA.

Tax Assessment Meeting Tonight

Reminder

There will be a special informational meeting meeting hosted by the Imporvement Association

Thursday
January 18, 7:00pm
Mount Washington Elementary School

Representatives of the Md. Dept. of Assessment and Taxation will explain the assessment process, the Homstead tax credit, and the appeals process.

This is your chance to understand the impact of the recent tri-annual assesment notices we all recently received.

Greenway Meeting Tonight

Reminder

The City will present it's final design options for the

Proposed
WESTERN RUN GREENWAY / HIKING/ BIKING TRAIL
TONIGHT

Cross Country Elementary School
7PM.

This is the culmination of three years of effort to improve pedestrian transportation and recreation in our community.
Please come out and comment on this potential new addition to our neighborhood!!
This meeting is open to everyone.

There is currently a proposal to build a new playground on the Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital property. The playground, which would be of "universal" design to allow full use by handicapped kids, would be part of a federally funded trails package. The trail component would include a hiking/biking/walking bridge that would span Northern Parkway at Rogers Avenue. This bridge would connect Mt. Washington to the open space and multi-million dollar restoration of Cylburn Arboretum. The trail would connect with the Jones Falls Trail (and downtown) to the south, and to the Mt. Washington Light Rail Station (and ultimately possibly Lake Roland) to the north.

The playground would be open to use by the kids recovering at the Pediatric Hospital and will be open for public use as well. Baltimore City's Department of Recreation and Parks is coordinating this process and they are looking to the Mt. Washington community for input as expressed through the Mt. Washington Improvement Association. The Hospital has offered the city right of way so that the trail can be built through their property and on to Mt. Washington Village, but only if the playground is part of the package.

The opportunity to have a brand new playground right in the neighborhood, the chance to have a safe place for our kids to ride\nbikes, and the added bonus of getting a safe walking access to Cylburn Arboretum is very attractive to me. I am fully in support of this proposal.

A few facts:

1) The proposed playground and trail would be fully federally funded. No city or private funds would be used. This would thus have no bearing\non the ongoing efforts at the former UB Fields (I am on the MWIA committee\nworking on that and would be happy to discuss that with you separately). Nor would it have any impact on the MWES Outdoor Classroom project.

2) The playground would be built on an area that was cleared of trees years ago and for some time has had an under-utilized adult fitness trail installed. The construction of the playground would NOT require the removal of additional trees.

3) The trail will require the removal of some of the smaller trees, but the plan includes the replacement of any trees removed. The City is adamant about preserving trees, and rightly so. The trail will be 8' wide to accommodate bike and foot traffic in both directions safely.

4) The Pediatric Hospital will monitor the playground area with their existing security system including cameras. The City representatives state\nthat the trails have had very little in the way of crime, and that they are patrolled by Baltimore City Police officers on bicycles."

At this point, the Improvement Association is looking for your input. Would you support such a project? It is important that you take a moment to share your thoughts with the Association by sending a quick email to MWIAPresident@gmail.com.