Beaver Island Michigan

Great post Jeff. The 2009 Recession was really tough. I did not have a new home 2009 -2012. About killed my business. Thank goodness for all the previous customers and friends that saw our problem and kept us busy.

P.S. Maybe it would help if we put a sign ,on the side of the EMS vehicles, the Health Center, the Library, the airport, the fire station, the Hisorical Society, the school, the Township Halls etc. â??Your Tax Dollars ar Workâ?￾. 🙂. God Bless and have a good day.

Woops, the total millage is roughly 40 mills, the school levy is approx. 20 mills. Add up the lines on your tax bill to get the exact amounts.

First, If there is a problem at the school, it will be looked at. The accusations have been put out there and as a community we will look at it and correct it , if necessary.
Second, high property taxes are not unique to Beaver Island. The cost of everything, inflation, and many other factors affect our tax bills. My summer and winter taxes for my property and buildings on Kings Highway (next to Peaine Township hall) are 5,174.64. My little two bed room condo in Petoskey is 4,019.10. We are in a building with 2 other condos and have people overhead and attached to the side. We only have a â??peek of the bay as there are large buildings in front of us. My vacant lot on Donegal bay is 2,734.42. There are people inland with a home that pay less taxes than I do on my vacant lot. So, yes, you can have a lake front lot with a pole barn on it and pay 4,000.00 a year as Adam Wirth does on his property. Michigan has done a lot in the last twenty years in tax relief. We have the heady amendment which limits us to only collect the same amount each year on levied millage regardless of the increases in property values. Michigan changed their sales tax from 4% to 7 % to help fund the schools and his reduced tax bills considerably. Homesteaders got relief on school taxes. I believe that if you qualify, elderly people pay their tax bill but then get reimbursed. That was the case with my mother in law. Also, as property values increase your taxable amount can only go up a small percentage each year. It used to be that your assessed value (1/2 the market value) and your taxable value were the same. Can you imagine what your tax bil would look like without these limitations?
And no, the township is not ripping you off on your taxes. If you are like me, I used to look at my tax bill, curse a few times , throw it in a drawer and pay it on the last possible day. After sitting on the board of review and being township supervisor for years, I learned a lot about taxes. You need to sit down with your tax bill and study it line by line and understand what your tax dollar are paying for. A lot of it is for county purposes. The townships operate on a moderate budget of approx. 4 mills. Which on an assessment of say 100,000.00 your money to help run the township, township saleries, etc. would be about 400.00 per year. The rest of the township collections are for fire dept., Medical center, township airport, roads, transit bus, EMS, and Library. The school is roughly 40 mills . The rest is the county services and State education. If your total assessment is 100,000.00 times 40 mills , your tax bill is going to be approximately. $4,000.00. Thatâ??s the price now days to live, work and have the essential services that a community needs. Without them you wonâ??t have a job to make the money you need to pay your taxes. Without taxes, Beaver Island would be wilderness. I know people who would prefer that. Whoâ??s going to maintain the roads , plow the snow, heal the sick, transport ill patients to the mainland, put out your house fire, maintain the airport, or keep the historical society and Library open????? So, you canâ??t just â??takeâ?￾ form a community. So pay your taxes with a bit of security and well being. Sure it marts to pay these tax bills. If you think your tax bill or asesssed value is higher than what you can sell the property for then there is the Board of Review every year at each township hall. Download a form and mail it or get someone on thee Island to represent you and take it to th meeting. There is a large book with ever property owners information. It used to be called â??a cardâ?￾. Itâ??s probably digital these days but every property is measured, building, well, and septic tanks, size of the home, condition of the home et. Etc. If your property bill is to be lowered it has to be because the information is incorrect or itâ??s not worth what the â??cardâ?￾ says itâ??s worth. Take a little time to investigate your tax bill. You may have to get it out of the drawer sometime sooner than the day before itâ??s due to be paid.

Thanks Marie. Very kind of you. We will miss Molly a lot. She was a special animal. Jeff was very good with her and us.

Thank you Mr. Pirate. You are human! 🙂. I appreciate your kind words.

Adam, Iâ??ve been pre-occupied as I had to put my beloved dog Molly down on Sunday. Iâ??d rather not give you my e-mail to you on the internet but Iâ??ll get it to you some other way. I assure you I will look into your claims and get back to you. If they are credible then they need to be addressed. ...

Mr. Troll, Youâ??re exactly what is wrong with this forum. Not what is working for this forum. My mistake or auto correct.

Who is his â??bumpâ?￾. Person? You just caused me and my family a lot of concern today when someone who didnâ??t understand your antics, called and asked Patti if I new there was a break-in today at Deerwood. She was in a bit of a panic to find me. We figured out it was a post on th forum. Youâ??re a knot head and I intend to find out who you are. There are consequences for this type of behavior. The only reason for re-posting was to try and intimidate or cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Ebersoldtâ??s recent post about the forum. That issue with kids trying to get into Deerwood was resolved very graciously by Vince and Meg Ebersoldt last summer and should not have been brought back up at this time. Your a troll and exactly whatâ??s working with this forum. I hope your happy. But we will not get down in the mud where you live and give you anything to feed on. So enjoy your little antics without explanation. Hope you never need anything from me, my family or friends. So , as Iâ??m concerned, youâ??re not welcome here anymore.

Pirate, Your best post ever. Thank you. You made your point without poking me. God job! And I agree we probably shouldn't put a # on it. I have always welcomed new people and all the good ideas they bring with them. Too bad about a few bad apples.
Adam, I donâ??t agree with anything you said with the exception of the taxes. Property taxes are basically out of our control-except for the millage we levy and what the assessor determines the property is worth. Tell me what Levyâ??s weâ??ve done that you think are excessive or inappropriate for our circumstances. We need everything the mainland does for fire protection, health center, EMS, etc. etc. And not a lot of people to pay for them. Assessments for tax purposes are mostly determined by what people are currently paying for the property. The county does a Sales study each year to see what the propertyâ??s sold for. They then compare it to what all similar properties are assessed. If similar properties are low then we are obligated to fix it or the county will create a multiplying â??Factorâ?￾ across the whole township. I know, I sat on the board of review for years. We tried to circumvent that by placing the increased values on the areas that were selling for higher prices and not on people inland or on homesteads that were not going up in value. We. Tried to fix it with the least impact we could put on all taxpayers. We canâ??t have a community without a school. We are much further out in the Lake than most communities and it does cost a lot more to get here than to most communities. I know for a fact that The airlines here are currently charging the same price now that people paid 20years ago to get from Mackinaw City to Mackinaw Island. A flight of about 5 miles at most. We are 32 miles out. I sat on the Boat Company board of directors for many years. I have the # 1 stock certificate to buy our boats back after a forced merger. The forced merger on our lifeline is one of the reasons that long term Islanders are skeptical of new people that think they can run this place better than we can. They lost so much money so fast, it was ridiculous. They almost sold our boats to recoup their loses. So, without all the facts, itâ??s easy to criticize prices .When we get people like you who like to just fire away without all the facts, we like for you to come to the board meetings or run for a seat on the board. I canâ??t tell you how many times (once youâ??re on the inside of these companies) the biggest complainers get a whole new attitude. Itâ??s very difficult running a small company these days. Owning your own business is a license for a lot of people to get into your pocket. Iâ??d be a wealthy man had it not been for insurance and taxes. Overhead on a small business is just awful. Thereâ??s a limit on how much you can charge for anything. Think of Alaska and the cost of living there. Itâ??s expensive to live far away. Iâ??m sorry about your bitterness about the island I know a bit about your experiences here but I also think you could have done a little more to help yourself.

Great post Vince. We need to exercise caution. Beaver Island is a fragile place as far as our economy is concerned. I donâ??t have a problem with the disagreements or any legitimate concerns that people have about costs to get here or whether or not we should be consolidated. Where it becomes a prob...

Kathy, Thank you for your kind words. You did the best you could with the no names. Time to get out. Theyâ??re having too much fun at our expense. Not worth our time. Iâ??m certainly not going to move to Canada if this consolidation occurs but itâ??s very unlikely that that will happen. Weâ??ve been...

I have been reading and participating on this forum for a couple of weeks now and have made a few observations that I would like to share with the people who post and the people who read the posts. First of all I want to apologize for starting two new threads. I was having trouble getting acquainted with the Forum and I mistakenly thought I should enter. â??New subject â?? when I should have been posting a â??replyâ?￾ and staying on the main thread. I was almost immediately accused of trying to dissenimate or spread the information . A tactic to affect the outcome. So what Am I? A Russian communist trying to affect the outcome of a coming election? I assure you nothing like that ever crossed my mind. And basically accused of living in the past, as well. I assure you that is also not the case. So I was insulted and felt the need to answer that post. If you donâ??t respond then you give credence to that post and the people following the Forum wonder if thatâ??s true.
My feelings were hurt and like most people the natural reaction is to bite back. Not good. So Ladies and gentlemen, there in lies the problem with this format. Had I been sitting across a table from that person, I would have had a tendency to be more reserved in my response , but more importantly I would have had an immediate chance to explain what happened and that he or she misunderstood my intention and that i was simply a mistake. On the internet, the responses are delayed and it gives license for people to say whatever they like. The idea that I would â??piss in my cheeriosâ?￾ is not something that I should have to read on this Forum. Also, it gives the big egos and talking heads a format to hear themselves speak in order to convince everyone else how smart they are. I have found that in any group,condo association, or township, there are people like that. They think they are smarter than everyone else but truly they are not. Some people on the format take a higher road. Thank you Pam for your informative post on the recreation plan an your level headed approach to this controversial issue. â??Letâ??s hear from the township officials offering an in-depth review of budgets an how we might streamline functions and services within the framework of two townships. Perhaps they can state why consolidation is unnecessaryâ?￾. Also I respect and agree with her concerns that it is a lot more work to go to so many meetings. But most systems of government do business in two houses and unfortunately I think it is a necessary evil. There are many other other good voices trying to make sense of this all. Only to be poked at by the nasty ones. Then add people hiding behind false names and you have a recipe for disaster. Especially to our reputation as being a decent community to come to, build homes and enjoy the Island.
I have been working diligently since 1965 to try and make Beaver Island what it is today. Almost all of the people , I have built for, have become good friends. Wonderful people. When people talk about Nepotism on the internet, it hurts to the core and except for a few rare occasions, is not true. I came back to the Island in 1975 and before my feet hit the ground , I was on three boards. I never asked or wanted to be on any of the boards I served on. At that time you usually did not serve on a board unless you were here year round for obvious reasons. Communication was not what it is today. The generation before us did not, for the most part, believe in Zoning, closing the City dump, extending the airport, transfer station, larger health center, bigger boat, to mention a few. It fell on our shoulders to show them great respect for saving our community in the 1960â??s and at the same time convince them that we needed Zoning, and that we couldnâ??t keep throwing our batteries in a hole in the ground less than two miles from town. We served more to our own detriment than personal gain . I personally had to resign during my 2nd term as St. James township supervisor. Dr. Neucomb told me to get out becuse I was burning from both ends and the middle. Ed Wojan lost two years of his life putting a stock offering together to buy back our boats from a forced merger. They were about to sell our boats off Island for a profit. That really hurt Edâ??s business. Itâ??s very difficult for people running their own business to do township business. At the time we had no choice. Do it or the county or State,or someone else will do it for you. I would be much better off financially today had I not had to leave my jobs so many times to take care of township business. So, please donâ??t accuse us of Nepotism. Itâ??s not fair and really looks bad in the eyes of people that might want to come to Beaver Island. Every community has itâ??s share of problems but letâ??s not put up a poster to that effect at the boat dock in Charlevoix. For these reasons I will not continue to post on this forum and will encourage everyone I know and all the people that I have built for to not give it any credibility. With the exception of going on to deny any falsehoods leveled against this community. Our beloved community that weâ??ve fought so hard for. We canâ??t let a few people ruin it. Also, Iâ??m encouraging all of the people who are against consolidation to quit wasting their time and efforts on this Forum and letâ??s take the fight directly to the voters. Personally, I think the way this was handled, itâ??s much to do about nothing. Under these circumstance, it will fail in Peaine Township and thatâ??s the end of it. Had we had time to come up with enough reasons to consolidate, and did everything we could to assure the people of Peaine that this could be made to work for them and that they could still be properly represented, then it might have worked. We have more commen interests than not. Iâ??m a St. James boy at heart. I grew up in St? James, was supervisor in St. James, etc. I currently reside in Peaine. There are good reasons for both consolidation and good reasons for not doing it. But to stuff this down the throats of the good citizens of Peaine is not the right thing to do. It will be considered nothing more than a â??takingâ?￾. Perhaps one day we will consolidate. But it will be done in a whole different manner.

Joe, I re-read your post on the 2 guys drinking beer. I can relate to that . Even if the guy in Peaine is paying somewhat less, thatâ??s not all bad. Consider that St. James receives more of the benefits. St. James has most of the pavement. In recent years we can get from the parking at the Erin and...

Joe, It seems that your concern could be fixed without consolidation. The business of tax collection is complicated. Peaine does levy less millage to collect the same amount of money necessary to contribute the same amount, that St. James is putting into the joint ventures. That has to do with the t...