Word: local
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Most of the dead workers had come from nearby West Virginia farms, and their families gathered that afternoon at a local firehouse, a drab concrete building that was serving as a makeshift morgue. One worker at the tower, Robert Steele, 35, lost ten members of his family−four brothers, three uncles and three cousins. Friends and relatives consoled each other as Red Cross workers called out the victims' names. A young pregnant woman, waiting to identify her husband's body, sobbed on her mother's shoulder. At dusk, small groups of workers and relatives gathered solemnly...
...house increases in value, the happier he will be. Yet for millions of homeowners that is not the case at all. As inflation pushes housing prices through the roof, property taxes are shooting up as well, ripping gaping holes in family budgets and sending homeowners into angry protests against local taxes and spending of all sorts. Says James Tobin, president of the National Taxpayers United of Illinois: "People are in a rebellious mood. They feel school taxes are out of control when they have to pay for courses on kindness and ethnic studies, while reading and writing skills decline...
Spontaneous taxpayer crusades are popping up from Connecticut to Oregon. In Idaho and Arizona, homeowners are pushing petitions to limit property taxes. In Florida, a proposed state constitutional amendment would force a 29% rollback in local property taxes and require a two-thirds vote of the legislature to increase taxes in the future. Legislatures in at least ten other states are considering property-tax relief of one form or another...
...California, where 1.5 million people have signed petitions and forced a statewide vote to be held June 6 on Proposition 13, the so-called Jarvis-Gann initiative. If approved, Jarvis-Gann would force all property to be reassessed at the market value that prevailed in 1975-76 and prevent local authorities from increasing the assessments in the future by more than 2% a year, at least until the property is sold. After that, the rate would be based on what the new owner paid. The amendment would produce an immediate cut of as much as 60% in property taxes...
Critics of the initiative, who include most leaders of state politics, business, labor and California's 1.5 million-member state and local bureaucracy, contend that it would lead to mass layoffs of teachers, police and firemen. Backers of Jarvis-Gann say that the warnings are preposterous and that the state is already running a $3.5 billion surplus that would soften the actual cutbacks to little more than moderate retrenchments...