Statement from the September 21 Board of Commissioners Monthly Meeting

Watch the recording on Youtube (beginning at 38:27): https://www.youtube.com/live/-H6emOPVzSE?si=gMyIg39lQs9-LCR5&t=2307

My name is Dan Redding and I am a candidate for County Commissioner. I am here tonight to talk about House Bill 1089 and what it could mean for our county. The ballot measure reads “Constitutional amendment requiring limits on property tax increases by local governments.” Voters will vote “yes or no.”

Nowhere in that measure does it explicitly state: “this will lower your taxes.” The only thing this amendment is guaranteed to do is to give more power to our General Assembly. The same General Assembly that has been consolidating power for the past 14 years, wants to take more power away from the local governments. 

Whether I am elected this November or not, I want the power to collect and distribute our local tax dollars to be with our local government - not the same General Assembly that keeps pushing unfunded mandates down to the local governments. 

There are some candidates here locally that have said “this won’t affect Cabarrus County” - that is a quote. I have a really hard time believing that, especially when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in a March 17 Facebook post said “Families are getting ripped off as counties like Wake and Cabarrus rake in billions more than inflation and population growth warrant.”

My reaction to this quote from Speaker Hall begs the following question: where is this overspending, anyways? We’ve had 2 budget cycles of were gonna “cut taxes, and get rid of wasteful spending” from this Board, and the COFE committee’s been around for almost 2 years…yet nothing has been cut. 

Also, the data points that the House Speaker used to try to say that we’re overspending, are wrong! Flat out. 

This very Board of Commissioners tried to replicate that data, yet could not do it!

Second, if one of the most powerful people in our state government uses Cabarrus County as an example of overspending, my guess is that whatever our General Assembly designs would negatively impact our county. 

So, let’s try and square this: the same General Assembly that:

1. Was over a year late in passing the state budget,

2. Used Cabarrus County specifically to try to cite “overspending”

3. When the data they used was flawed and could not be verified, by this very Board!

4. To get an amendment on the ballot that is only going to give said General Assembly more power

   
   

And they're trying to sell it to voters by saying it will lower their taxes.

I do not care which party has the majority - ceding control of our local tax dollars to the General Assembly is a terrible idea. It could fundamentally reshape how Cabarrus County funds the services that help make this county such an incredible place to live. I urge all voters of this county to vote “no” on this, and all amendments, this Fall.