Are you Kidding me??? Where has my America gone, oh yeah, to the lawyers. Win elections with money and courts, kill small business with the courts and taxes. I am calling for a boycott of the big business model. Since when did one of these big businesses do something good? Oh wait, they employ a few hundred sorry soles that in a few weeks could all be out in the cold while the lawyers and CEO's of said businesses are fat and happy.
I am totally for capitalism and serving the public with a good or service. I am happy to see people prosper and grow. I cannot stand by and watch small businesses such as this one get clobbered by legal costs for taking NOTHING away from the sales of their ONE BEER!!! You honestly think that Rock Art brewery in Vermont is competing against anything that Monster Energy drink could produce? I don't think so. At most 100,000 people might have heard about Rock Art and this one line of beer. I guess NO ONE can use the word Monster. CRAZY.
I want my America back, TODAY please.
Jay Carden
RE/MAX Properties, Inc.
Search the Colorado Springs MLS
Valuable Free Information about Colorado Springs Housing market. I am a Colorado Springs Real Estate professional helping buyers and sellers with their real estate needs in Colorado Springs. Find information on Colorado Springs Homes for sale, Colorado Springs Real Estate News and Events.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
First Time Home Buyer Credit Extension Might be Likely
| Extension of Tax Credit Looks Likely |
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FIRST-TIME BUYERS: A lively RE/MAX video, accessible on both YouTube and Agent Training on Demand, illustrates that "RE/MAX Agents Know $8K Tax Credit." |
A Realty Times Feature Article by Kenneth R. Harney
Quick passage by the House last week of a bill extending the $8,000 home buyer tax credit next year for military, diplomatic and intelligence personnel serving overseas increases the odds that Congress will agree to an extension, maybe even an expansion, of the entire credit program well into 2010.
The White House is also signaling that it sees the overall tax credit program -- currently set to expire November 30 -- as an important element in cutting the unemployment rolls and stimulating new jobs next year.
After an economic policy strategy meeting last week in the Oval Office involving President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, congressional aides said Democrats generally support an extension of the housing credit.
Reid already has made clear he wants an extension. He is co-sponsoring a Senate bill that would do so for six months.
Congressman Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, sponsored the one-year extension of the credit for military and other personnel serving overseas, and is reported by aides as favoring an extension for the entire program.
The White House has not publicly committed to an extension, but has confirmed that the President is seriously examining that option.
An unexpected development that emerged following last week's White House meeting was the possibility of opening up the credit to a broader group of buyers next year - people who sell their current homes and buy a replacement home.
Though details were scanty, Capitol Hill sources said one option on the table would be to provide a tax credit -- most likely at the $8,000 level -- to replacement home buyers whose incomes do not exceed some limit.
The current credit phases out for single taxpayers with incomes above $75,000, and married purchasers earning $150,000.
A politically sensitive issue hovering over the entire debate on extending the housing tax credit is its cost - what it would add to the federal budgetary deficit. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, estimates that widening the credit to all buyers through next August could cost the government upwards of $30 billion.
Rangel's 12-month extension of the credit for service personnel is estimated to cost more than $300 million, but it's mainly being paid for through an increase in penalties levied by the IRS on taxpayers who fail to file corporate or partnership returns.
The New York Times reported that one possible solution to the cost problem would be to divert money not yet spent out of 2009's $800 billion stimulus legislation.
Jay Carden
RE/MAX Properties, Inc.
Search the Colorado Springs MLS
Friday, October 9, 2009
Colorado Springs Tax Increase Calculator
Who is worried about higher Taxes in Colorado Springs? I know for me, that is not a huge concern as we pay some of the lowest costs in the nation. We have an amazing parks system and a great life in our area. I want to continue to enjoy this city and I am willing to pay a little more. I think that paying $183 dollars more over 5 years is not going to break my budget. That is a proposal of $18 bucks a year increase. I kind of like having the fire department, police, and parks in my city.
Please think about your quality of life and what it means to spend a few extra dollars. I know that this is a fairest tax that can be levied on EVERYONE!!! Sales taxes punish the richer so join me in Voting Yes on 2C in Colorado Springs.
Colorado Springs Proposed Tax Increase
As most of you have heard, the residents of Colorado Springs will be voting on November 3 about a proposed property tax increase. (The last to register is today, Monday, October 5 and the ballots will be mailed out around October 16.)
Many people are confused about just what this tax increase means, and given the apparently contradictory information that I keep hearing this is no surprise. On the one hand, we hear that they are going to increases the city property tax by 3 times the current rate, and on the other hand they claim it will affect the average homeowner by “only” $200 a year.
It doesn’t even sound like we’re talking about the same tax increase here – so what is the deal? First, let’s see the actual wording from the upcoming ballot – then I’ll explain some key points that will help us make sense of the issue. Your ballot will read:
Shall City taxes be increased (final year $46,000,000) annually by increasing 2009 general property tax 6.00 mills, 1.00 additional mill per year for four years, constituting voter approved revenue change.
1. The Tax Increase is 10 Mills over 5 Years
The above ballot text essentially states that they will raise taxes by 10 mills over 5 years. It is jump-started with a 6 mill increase right away, and followed by 4 years of 1 mill per year increases.
2. Market Value vs. Assessed Value
I’ll use an actual Colorado Springs home located near Tutt and Stetson Hills as an example for the sake of discussion; the county puts the market value of this home at $211,296 which is fairly typical for the area. However, we must multiply this number by the assessment rate of 7.96% to reach theassessed value of $16,320. This is the number we then use to calculate taxes.
3. The Mill Levy – The city property tax is just one portion of your overall tax bill
Next, we take the assessed value and multiply it by the total mill levy. In this case, the mill levy is 0.066542 (or approximately 66 mills) which results in a current tax bill of $1085.96. However, of this $1,085.96 only $80.69 actually goes to directly to the city. The remainder in our example goes to El Paso county, a library district, a water district, school district 49, etc. You can see a breakdown of the mill levy here:
4. The City Portion Would More Than Triple; Your Total Bill Will Not
Since the city only accounts for a portion of the total tax bill, the percentage increase on your total bill will tend to fall somewhere around 15% for most neighborhoods even though the cities portion will more than triple. Using the same home as an example, the tax increase would change the cities portion from $80.69 (4.944 Mills) to $243.89 (14.944 Mills). The total tax bill in our example would increase from $1,085.96 to $1,249.16.
5. Commercial Property Taxes are Affected More than Residential
Of significance, though mostly overlooked, is the affect this will have on commercial property taxes as well. Because of how property taxes are assessed, commercial property taxes will be affected to a much greater extent than residential properties. This is because while the assessment rate for residential is 7.96% the rate for commercial property is 29%. This means the assessed value used for computing taxes is almost 4 times higher for a $200,000 commercial property vs. an identical value residential property.
What do you think? Does the city really need more money? Should they make do with what they have? Will this tax make a tangible impact on quality of like in Colorado Springs for the better? Or for the worse if it doesn’t pass? The city makes their case for the tax hike here. Many sites make a counter argument. The opposing sides have corresponding Facebook fan pages “for” and“against” as well. You can see the mill levy, market value, and assessed value for your property at the El Paso county assessors website.
Jay Carden
RE/MAX Properties, Inc.
Search the Colorado Springs MLS
Colorado Springs Budget Shortfall
Big Changes planned for Colorado Springs City Budgets. Help save our city and our services to make this a great place to live. The Colorado Springs Real Estate community is helping to not have to reduce services.
Fire Department - $3,238,000 TOTAL CUT

Police Department - $6,216,000 TOTAL CUT
Jay Carden
RE/MAX Properties, Inc.
Search the Colorado Springs MLS
Fire Department - $3,238,000 TOTAL CUT
- Eliminate vacant promoted positions and associated operating costs $1,017,337 CUT
In 2009, the Fire Department cut five firefighter positions in addition to the fourteen that were cut previously to meet the initial 2009 budget. As a result, the hazardous materials unit was taken out of service as a full-time staffed unit, reducing, by four, the number of personnel needed to staff emergency units daily. The hazardous materials team is now assigned to staff both an engine and the hazardous materials unit. Due to the staffing change, and because there have been no expansions of paramedic service in recent years, there are more positions in the promoted ranks than are currently needed. If these positions are eliminated, the present minimum daily staffing can be maintained with a small, offsetting increase in overtime funds that can be covered within the existing budget.
- Reduce minimum staffing overtime $200,000 CUT
- Eliminate Squad 108 and the associated six firefighter positions and reduce overtime for minimum staffing $511,865 CUT
- Cross-staff heavy rescue with a truck company, eliminating twelve firefighter positions, associated operating, and overtime for minimum staffing $936,731 CUT
This would be accomplished by removing Heavy Rescue as a full-time unit and cross-staffing it with a ladder truck; one crew would cover two units. While this change would not have a major impact on first company coverage, the effect on structure fire coverage is significant. Structure fire coverage would decline by more than 5 percentage points in PEZs 7 and 9, and PEZs 3 and 4 are affected to a lesser degree. City-wide structure fire coverage would decline more than 2% to 89.4%. Workload impacts would be felt throughout the system. The companies most impacted will have to cease or curtail inspecting high-risk occupancies, such as multi-family residential properties, where local fire history shows the largest loss of life has occurred.
- Eliminate Squad 7 and the associated 6 firefighter positions and reduce overtime $572,067 CUT
Coverage impacts assume that Squad 108 is eliminated and that Heavy Rescue is cross-staffed. The effect on first response of eliminating Squad 7 would be felt primarily in PEZ 8, where eight-minute coverage would drop from above 91% to about 88.5%. Engine 7's workload would more than double, from 2,413 estimated responses before any budget reductions to 5,510 responses: an increase of 3,097 responses. The effect on structure fire coverage is primarily in PEZ 9, where it will drop by a full percentage point due to the increase in workload on firefighting units.
Police Department - $6,216,000 TOTAL CUT
This list includes the elimination of 53 sworn positions and 12 civilian positions resulting in layoffs of 23 sworn personnel and 6 civilian personnel. Due to Civil Service rules, the sworn officers with the least seniority will be eliminated, therefore, negatively impacting the Patrol Bureau. In addition, these reductions will force a major reorganization of CSPD, severely impacting police services delivery and management oversight.
- Patrol Officers $2,294,479 CUT
Eliminate 26 of the 352 sworn officer positions from the Patrol Bureau. A minimum of 18 additional vacancies will remain frozen through the end of 2010. These numbers do not include 7 officer positions that will be eliminated due to a reduction in PSST funding. Patrol officers are assigned to respond to police calls for service, work to reduce crime in problem/high crime areas (POP), conduct routine patrol, and perform some preliminary investigations. Reductions in resources assigned to these areas will necessitate significant revisions to current service levels, including an increasing reliance upon alternative call processing and the restructuring of the priority levels of calls for service. Other potential impacts include lack of adequate resources for proactive policing, difficulty maintaining minimum staffing levels, potential impacts to officer safety for calls requiring back up units, and a reduction in crime prevention and community collaboration efforts. At current staffing, CSPD generally has adequate personnel to respond to only one major incident if officers are pulled from several divisions, resulting in the inability to staff a concurrent event elsewhere in the City. Because Civil Service rules mandate reductions in force by seniority, the majority of the officers impacted by this reduction are currently in the Police Academy. The investment made in these positions includes a significant number of hours pre-screening each applicant, as well as, the lengthy training. CSPD estimates the cost associated with hiring and training each recruit at $54,000, prior to assignment with a Patrol Training Officer.
The inability to retain the current recruit class and to timely fund ongoing academies will impact CSPD's ability to hire and train police recruits to fill vacancies created by attrition, further impacting patrol workload. It is estimated that CSPD will have 18 vacancies at the end of 2010, after eliminating 26 authorized positions. If an academy were commenced first quarter of 2011, the new recruits would not be available for field training assignment until third quarter, by which time the vacancies would likely have more than doubled during the year.
Patrol would be further impacted at a time when members of the bureau must assume additional responsibilities as a result of special unit reductions.
- Intelligence Officer $90,900 CUT
- Air Support Unit -Sergeant, Officers, and Mechanic $877,478 CUT
Eliminate the air support program - eliminate one sergeant position, two officer positions, and one aircraft mechanic position and sell the two helicopters. CSPD has a comparatively large geographic area of over 194 square miles to cover, and the helicopter provides a unique vantage point and surveillance tool that cannot be replaced by single ground unit. In 2008, it was first on scene to nearly 1,000 calls. The air support unit's average response time is 2 minutes, while the average land response time to priority one calls is 9 minutes 28 seconds.
Also in 2008, the air support unit assisted with 357 felony in-progress calls, 22 vehicle pursuits, 115 shots fired calls, and 5 missing person calls. The value of its capabilities is clearly evidenced in critical incidents, such as the New Life shooting.
- Metro Vice/Narcotics/Intelligence Special Enforcement Unit Officers $272,235 CUT
- Tactical Enforcement Unit Sergeant and Officer (TEU) $202,878 CUT
- Community Impact Team Officers $200,278 CUT
Eliminate two officer positions. The Community Impact Team began 2007 with 32 officers and has already been reduced to the current staffing of 15. The 2010 reduction will bring staffing to 13. During 2008, the Community Impact Team seized 106 illegal weapons, $1 million in drugs, $80,000 in cash, and made 500 arrests. The elimination of these positions will further reduce CSPD's ability to proactively respond to violent crimes and gangrelated activity, dismantle criminal networks, and participate in joint investigations with the FBI, DEA, and ATF.
Some of the burden for these investigations will shift to patrol officers further reducing their availability to respond to other calls.
- Code Enforcement Officers $65,452 CUT
- Burglary and Theft Investigators $362,602 CUT
Eliminate four officer positions. Property Crime Detectives are responsible for investigation of crimes such as burglary, burglarized motor vehicles and other thefts. Current staffing represents a 38% reduction from 2008 staffing levels. The 2010 reduction represents an additional 25% decrease from current staffing, or an overall decrease of 54% from 2008 staffing. CSPD processed 16,051 property crimes reports for victims in 2008 and is expecting these crimes to remain at current levels. This reduction is problematic because the complexity of these crimes is increasing, many of these crimes involve identity theft and other cyber crimes, and these crimes require additional investigative effort and coordination with other units such as Financial Crimes. This reduction will result in minimal resources for ongoing investigation and will necessitate focusing only on property crimes that occur in significant patterns. The burden of investigating other property crimes will fall on Patrol.
- Juvenile Offender Unit Officers (JOU) $271,510 CUT
- Domestic Violence Enhanced Response Team Sergeant (DVERT) $109,378 CUT
Eliminate the DVERT Sergeant position. This sergeant coordinates the partners of a multiagency team allowing immediate, urgent assessment and response to domestic violence cases with the highest risk of lethal violence.
Multiple midlevel positions formerly funded by federal grants have been eliminated, forcing the associated duties to be performed by this Sergeant position. Position is subject matter expert on how to best staff and assign each case.
- Training Academy Sergeant $109,378 CUT
Eliminate one Training Academy Sergeant position. This reduces sergeant staffing at the Training Academy by 50%. This position is critical for ensuring employees receive ongoing training to maximize officer and community safety. Remaining staff will be responsible for coordinating this training.
- Inspections Sergeant $109,378 CUT
Eliminate one Inspections Sergeant position. This position tracks use-of-force situations and oversees the early intervention program in an effort to prevent officer misconduct and to provide assistance to officers in need of training or counseling. It also conducts audits and maintains internal controls of critical high-risk department functions such as evidence and impound. Loss of this position will cause those duties to be reassigned to other positions.
- Abandoned Vehicle Enforcement $52,700 CUT
- Motor Carrier Officer $90,900 CUT
Eliminate one Motor Carrier Officer position. This position enforces compliance with commercial vehicle laws and can issue over 550 citations and 700 warnings for safety violations, overweight vehicles, truck route violations, and spills each year. The position is also responsible for giving presentations to commercial motor vehicle organizations to increase knowledge of commercial vehicle safety to gain voluntary compliance with laws and regulations. These duties will be absorbed by the traffic unit and enforced as time allows.
- Metro Vice / Narcotics / Intelligence (VNI) Commander and Senior Office Specialist $201,927 CUT
Eliminate one commander position and one senior office specialist position. Due to the sensitive nature of VNI's undercover operations, oversight is imperative. The elimination of these positions will decrease management focus, oversight, and area expertise.
- Professional Standards Commander $142,927 CUT
Eliminate one commander position. The Professional Standards Division reviews officer involved critical incidents and investigates complaints received on sworn and non-sworn employees of the CSPD to maintain public trust. Further, the division identifies and provides mandatory training; and develops and updates policies to keep in conformity with changing laws and statutes. Although these duties will continue, management focus and oversight will decrease.
- Deputy Chief $168,000 CUT
- Recruiting Officer $90,900
Eliminate one officer position. This officer is CSPD's first point of contact with the applicant/recruit pool in the City, region and nationwide as recruiting is impacted by the internet. The recruiting officer interfaces with the military and university communities through education programs and career assistance, represents the department at career fairs, and communicates regularly with potential candidates to encourage their participation in the application process and ensure CSPD is able to recruit highly qualified candidates who reflect our community's demographics. These duties will be substantially reduced and absorbed by remaining staff.
- Cadet Explorer Officer $90,900
Eliminate one officer position. This position oversees the cadet program that allows CSPD to mentor youth while receiving the benefit of volunteer service and potential candidates for future police academies. In 2008, Cadet Explorers volunteered 5,365 hours, approximately 70% of which supported Special Events and other operational areas. Cadet Explorer duties will be reassigned to other officer positions.
- Police Operations Center (POC) Midnight Police Service Representatives (PSRs) $117,400 CUT
- Metro Vice/Narcotics/Intelligence Office Specialist $53,700
Eliminate one office specialist position. This position prepares extensive background information on suspects for detectives, fields narcotic tip calls from citizens, and files drug cases with the DA's Office. Elimination of this position will cause duties to be redistributed to other Metro VNI staff because these duties are required to ensure officer safety.
- Financial Crimes Clerk $53,700 CUT
Eliminate one office specialist position. This position provides the Financial Crimes Unit with general clerical support, including: typing report supplements, arrest warrants, and search warrants; entering information into and searching pawn data base to provide information to detectives and insurance companies; and preparing background information on suspects for detectives. These duties will be absorbed by unit detectives.
- Human Resources Senior Office Specialist $59,000
Eliminate one office specialist position. This position processes documentation associated with recruiting and hiring police officers including, job applications, transcripts, background checks and other hiring documents.
This position provides information to candidates while coordinating and scheduling applicable testing appointments. This workload is significant during hiring and the reassignment of these duties will impact remaining HR staff. Additionally, this position tracks employee evaluations for all department members.
- Office of the Chief Administrative Technicians $128,000 CUT
Eliminate two administrative technician positions. This eliminates two of the three positions responsible for administrative support for the Office of the Chief. Their responsibilities include complex clerical functions in support of departmental executives, maintenance of calendars, coordination of internal and external meetings, screening of phone calls and processing complaints. This reduction will negatively impact processing time required for correspondence, requests for information, changes to policies and procedures, and bureau level reports.
Jay Carden
RE/MAX Properties, Inc.
Search the Colorado Springs MLS
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Colorado Springs Pumpkin Patches
I just found this great resource on Colorado Halloween Fun including Pumpkin Patches, Corn Mazes, and much more fun. Check out this great resource: Colorado Pumpkin Patches
Hope you all have a good time with these fall activities.
Jay Carden
RE/MAX Properties, Inc.
Search the Colorado Springs MLS
Colorado Springs Open House Today, Remodeled House
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Jay Carden
RE/MAX Properties, Inc.
Search the Colorado Springs MLS
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