In the heart of the Iron Range, the December 2nd Itasca County Commissioner meeting had approximately 150 citizens show up to fight back against the county’s proposed 10% property tax hike. Action 4 Liberty previously reported on the tax increase, put out the call to Patriots, and the grassroots of Itasca delivered!

During the public comment section of the meeting, basically every single person was there to trash that tax hike! It seemed the only people in the room who supported that tax increase were Commissioners Cory Smith, John Johnson, and Casey Venema and the county Auditor/Treasurer Austin Rohling. Smith supporting the tax hike is especially disappointing to Itasca locals since Smith had campaigned on lowering property taxes.

With massive public opposition to the tax increase, especially a huge 10% increase, the Commissioners knew their feet were being held to the fire. While the Commissioners have argued their political independence before, they made it clear that they were blaming the tax increase on Tim Walz and Democrats passing unfunded mandates.

Many of the citizens in Itasca were savvy enough to reject the Commissioner’s excuses. Citizens suggested the county find more to cut in their budget, tap into their budget reserves, and refuse to enforce the liberal unfunded mandates. Commissioners argued that Itasca would be facing major lawsuits and their bond rating (government debt allowance) could weaken if they did that but the Citizens made it clear: THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE DEMANDING! NO NEW TAXES!

Several Patriots also questioned the methods for evaluating property values and argued that the arbitrary and inconsistent evaluations made by the county are unacceptable. The citizens know that they are getting ripped off and are tired of it!

See some of the hard-hitting, freedom-loving, truth-telling Itasca citizens straighten their local politicians out below:

As seen in the clip above, an Itasca resident named James asked each of the commissioners if they thought a single citizen in that room wanted the tax hike. Each commissioner had to publicly admit that their constituents don’t want it! Individuals interested in watching the entire meeting can do so here.

Unfortunately, no citizen brought up the fact that several of the commissioners had voted last year to give themselves and several other county officials salary increases. When politicians are telling citizens to bear new costs while giving themselves salary increases, the system is broken.

While there was lots of talk about the legislature, zero members of the legislature appeared to be present at the meeting, including RINO Rep. Spencer Igo who actually lives in Itasca County. Considering that Igo commonly votes for Establishment, unconstitutional, corrupt, multi-subject omnibus bills (as seen in A4L's recent scorecard), it may not be a surprise to Itasca resident that he is not fighting for the taxpayer's interests.

The commissioners realized that all eyes were on them and that citizens were going to go nuts if they voted for the 10% tax hike. Amendments were made to the proposed plan and the tax hike has been dropped down to a 6.71% increase. Smith moved to cut $100K out of the county preservation budget and the county would not enforce road dust control policy (though locals say that this is not a new cut and they didn’t enforce it last summer). Snyder then made a stronger motion to use $1M of their budget reserves.

Many locals were disappointed to see Commissioners Snyder and Hopkins be so quiet during the majority of the meeting. As the only two commissioners who opposed the tax hike in the preliminary vote, the grassroots was hoping the two of them would be ready to rumble.

The county commissioners ultimately tabled the vote to December 16th which puts them right at the end of the deadline to pass their tax hike. This means that the grassroots pressure has worked! Citizen involvement has already brought the tax down by over 3% but the fight is not over!

Patriots in Itasca must stay involved and continue to fight the tax hike at the upcoming December 16th meeting. It is NOT ENOUGH that the tax hike has dropped a little, Itasca residents are already overtaxed and they should not be forced to pay a penny more! The grassroots is building momentum in Itasca County and Action 4 Liberty is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the fed-up taxpayers of our state. 

Patriots statewide can use Itasca taxpayers as a template for grassroots citizen involvement in fighting back against property tax hikes. County commissioners across the state are doing the same kind of tax increases to their citizens that Itasca is. The only way citizens can eliminate big, wasteful government is to fight back!