By Ed Terry | Guest Commentary
I will start with, I do not have a degree in economics or political science. I am just a retired working man living on a fixed income who loves Pamlico County (but not as much as when it was unspoiled), and before inflated property values driven by money from places like NY and other diverse locations.
If you have lived here as long as I have you will remember the beauty of being undiscovered by people with $$$$ to spend. We drove out of the County often to make a living wage, on a two lane road and wondered if the bridge would be a quick crossing into downtown New Bern.
Today we whiz along on a 4-lane highway, only limited by dodging cars exiting the Super Walmart. Once beyond the dangers in Grantsboro we can even bypass New Bern should our destination be farther away.
I read an article recently by a graduate of a big time Northern University who lives in the County. I read it with great interest as it elegantly outlined WHY Pamlico County needs more money. There were legitimate explanations I can not argue. Yes, Pamlico County needs more TAX MONEY. And Pamlico County Commissioners WILL TAKE IT. They will take it from people who can not afford to have it TAKEN. If not by increasing the Tax Rates, then by overvalue of our homes and land and there is little we can do about it.
At the end of the aforementioned article there was an explanation of HOW Pamlico County can expand its Tax Base to help. More people will not help Pamlico County. I believe with more people Pamlico County as I knew and loved it will be forever lost. I found the explanation in the author’s assertion of how to fix Pamlico County’s Tax needs problematic when it was mentioned building a bridge across the Neuse River to Cherry Point so more people could live here and pay TAXES. I do not know what it would cost to build a 3 mile long bridge from Minnesott Beach to Cherry Point. Maybe a Billion or more? I do know who would PAY FOR IT, and they would pay for it by increased TAXES.
I wrote each member of the Pamlico County Commissioners. I heard back from one. I am left to see only POLITICIANS who care little for ‘We the People’ who Love and have lived in Pamlico County long before it was discovered by $$$$. I remember in 1954 standing on the shore at a place called “Sound View.” If you do not know where Sound View and Sandy Point were, you have not been here long enough to understand.
I know of two very good people who will likely lose their family land to this Taxation without condition, i.e. representation. Peoples’ representation being only in name and not in-justice. More accurately expressed as INJUSTICE. Pamlico County will become the “rich mans land” far removed from “TaTakua”: The name from the Pampticoe Indians “where the land and sea meet the sky.” Smallpox in 1696, the Tuscarora War of 1711, and the last mention of them in 1718, the Pampticoe people are likely laughing from the sky that meets the land and sea where they once lived, but now lost to invaders.
As for the Tax Collectors of Pamlico County, I say again and with all sincerity, SHAME ON YOU.
