Greene County‘s Board of Supervisors have decided to take Sheriff William Morris to court over his refusal to write tickets to people without county stickers on their vehicles. Morris recently ordered his deputies to cease writing tickets to motorists that lack a county sticker, because he believes that his office’s role is not that of tax collector. The BOS disagrees. The Progress has the full story, but you can read WINA’s on-line.
Well, since no one has any comments, I will step into the breach….
It’s a bit hypocritical of Morris to suddenly decide which laws he wants to enforce based on what he thinks is fair. How does he know for sure whether people can afford to pay their taxes? It’s very very possible that the people who can’t pay their taxes have real financial problems but it’s just as likely that they just don’t want to (and I have met some people from just plain folks to physicians at UVa who think that personal property taxes are just beyond them).
What’s funny is that he (Morris) was really gearing up the speed traps up on Route 29 and collecting money but as soon as the county refused to give him more money for a deputy, he tried (did he succeed?) to change where the speeding ticket money went. Instead of the county getting the money, he wanted it to go to the educational fund (and he may have succeeded in doing so).
It’s just a squabble between him and the county supervisors and he’s pretending to be a Robin Hood type character in taking care of the poor.
It’s rather childish and in the long run, if the county doesn’t collect taxes, how will the sheriff’s office continue to operate? The property taxes pay for all kinds of services. And there ain’t so such thing as a free lunch.
Walking Tall- We have our own version of “Buford Pusser”. Maybe this should go under the heading of “are we really the south?”. Sheriff Willie and The Dukes of Hazards in Sperryville, DAMN I might even try the grits at the Waffle House.