The next public meeting of the Yates County Legislature is at 1.00pm on Monday August 11th. Please come and let them know you are unhappy with their financial management. A member of their Financial Committee has admitted the Property Taxes are “exorbitant”. They have done nothing to bring new business into the County and have continued to Tax and Spend more than we can afford. Due to their lack of fiscal restraint we have seen desperation measures like the sneaky introduction of the Occupancy Tax on private home rentals (something no other county in the region imposes and which harms tourism, one of our main industries and sources of income). They have done nothing to encourage new business into the area. And now, with revenues likely to tank, they are desperate to avoid giving anything up (such as sharing Sales Tax revenue with the Villages).

Last week Judge Bender of Seneca County made summary judgment against the motion petitioning that the Yates County Occupancy Tax was unconstitutional. But rather than lay down and roll over for the Legislators, the people behind the motion, the YatesOuchTax group and their many supporters, have decided to file an appeal against the motion and are considering further action. They, along with a new group of caring voters, have also formed the Yates Coalition for Responsible Government (YCRG) with the intention of stopping the current “tax and spend” habits of the Yates County Legislature. They aim to fight any Legislator or legislation which raises expenditures, introduces new taxes or otherwise harms the economic and business health of Yates County.

To this end they plan to continue the fight against the Occupancy Tax as a primary focus of their actions, and are now aggressively fund-raising for further action. They have run a pretty successful campaign of petitions (ignored by the Legislators and incorrectly dismissed by Chairman Multer as containing many duplicates when none had been included in the 700+ total), signs, adverts and lobbying. They plan to intensify their efforts over the coming months, hoping to mobilize the many Voters and Property Owners of Yates County who also see the ever-increasing tax burdens and imposition of egregious laws with draconian penalties as wrong.

The group has been wrongly identified as seeking to stop the Occupancy Tax altogether. What they want is it fairly applied to businesses only, without the draconian penalties associated with the current law. No other FingerLake county applies such a law to private home rentals (Schuyler County does not try and collect the tax and Ontario County only applies it owners with 3 or more rental properties) and it has been proven by various studies to harm tourism. Neither the Legislature not the Yates Chamber of Commerce have taken any regard of these studies, nor have they taken any account of the feelings of a large number of local residents or of the majority of Lodging Group members of the Chamber and they have acted to introduce this law in a sneaky, underhand and possibly illegal manner (not least by applying New York State direction that it should be applied to “Hotels and Motels”, not private home rentals).

The most effective way to change the direction of the Legislature is a demonstration of public dissatisfaction. To that end, the YatesOuchTax committee and YCRG are calling for all interested members of the public to attend the next meeting of Yates County Legislature on Monday August 11th at 1.00pm. Please make an effort to stop the tax hikes by coming along to the meeting. You can speak if you want, but your mere presence will demonstrate to the elected representatives that they cannot go on as they are at present. If we don’t act now, we will all end up paying a lot more in taxes!