<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:18pt"><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 18pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div><div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">UPDATE ON CANCELLATION OF SBOE HEARINGS</span></font><br></div><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">ALERT:</span> #181<br><span style="font-weight: bold;">DATE:</span> August 24, 2008<br><span style="font-weight: bold;">TO:</span> Incline Village & Crystal Bay Property Owners<br><span style="font-weight: bold;">FROM: </span>Village League Tax Revolt Committee<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dear Incline Village & Crystal Bay Property Tax
Protesters,</span><br><br>Today’s Bonanza newspaper published an excellent article about the cancellation of last Thursday and Friday’s hearings before the State Board of Equalization. All residential properties in Incline Village and
Crystal Bay are affected.<br><br>Rather than going into more detail, following is the text of this article. Note that there is one error that needs correction. Wes Smith, not Richard Mason, is chair of the State Board of Equalization (SBOE). Our continuing thanks to the Bonanza for another excellent article following our property tax revolt efforts.<br><br>Sincerely,<br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Maryanne Ingemanson,</span> President<br>Village League to Save Incline Assets<br><a target="_blank" href="http://www.NevadaPropertyTaxRevolt.org">www.NevadaPropertyTaxRevolt.org</a><br><br><div style="text-align: center;">---------------------------------<br></div><font style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;" size="6"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"></font><div style="text-align: center; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><font size="4"><font size="6"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0,
0); font-weight: bold;">Incline Village taxation hearings
delayed</span></font><br><font size="2">Bonanza Editorial, front page, August 24, 2008, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.TahoeBonanza.com">www.TahoeBonanza.com</a></font><br><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-weight: bold;" size="5"><br><font size="5">Governor must fill seats on state board before cases can be heard</font></font><br></font></div><font size="4"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-weight: bold;">By Kevin MacMillan</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">BONANZA INTERIM EDITOR</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">More than 1,300 local residents will have to wait even longer to get final
determination on the tax petitions they filed with the
Washoe County Assessor’s Office at the beginning of the year.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">A pair of hearings before the Nevada State Board of Equalization, scheduled to take place Thursday and Friday in Carson City, were postponed after the board lacked enough members to hear the cases, which were filed by the Jan. 15 deadline and argue assessed property values from the 2008-2009 fiscal year.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">About 1,350 individual plaintiffs filed petitions, six of which named 6,995 Incline/Crystal Bay residents as co-plaintiffs.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br
style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">The cases originally were to be heard in February by the Washoe County Board of Equalization, but it ruled it had no jurisdiction to hear them, said Maryanne Ingemanson, president of the Village League to Save Incline Assets, the local group of Incline tax revolters.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">“So it goes to the state board after that,” she said.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">The state equalization board had hearings scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Carson City. The board is composed of five
members, and it requires a minimum of three to be present in order to hear a case. Having enough members available to hear a case is called having “quorum.”</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">However, two of the five board members are personally named in a lawsuit filed by the Village League to Save Incline Assets, the local group of Incline tax revolters, regarding assessed values from the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Therefore, because of a conflict of interest, they could not hear the cases.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">Furthermore, a third member of the board, chairman Richard Mason <span style="font-style: italic;">[should be
Wes Smith]</span>, recently received a decision from the Nevada Ethics Commission that he might be perceived to have a financial interest in the outcome because he owns property rights in the Incline Village area.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">Therefore, Mason <span style="font-style: italic;">[should be Smith]</span> recused himself from the hearings, leaving only two members to hear the Incline cases, thus not reaching a quorum.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">Now the hearings are postponed indefinitely, until at least one person is appointed to the board, a decision that only can come from Gov. Jim Gibbons.</span><br
style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">In a Friday phone interview, Ben Kieckhefer, Gibbons’ press secretary, said the governor is working to fill the board’s open slots.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">“We recognize that we need to make some appointments, but there’s no way to tell when they will be named,” Kieckhefer said. “I don’t know if anyone has been offered a seat on the board ... we don’t comment on the number of applicants we have.”</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">Ingemanson said she thinks it may take some time to
fill the spots, considering the recent decision from the Nevada Supreme Court regarding the community’s tax revolt.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">On July 25, the state high court ruled that various taxation departments, including the state board of equalization, were unconstitutional in the way they assessed Incline Village properties during the 2004-2005 fiscal year. The court’s opinion demanded a roll back to the 2002-2003 assessed levels, plus interest, for 38 parcel owners in the case.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">The decision doesn’t make the open seats on the state equalization board more appealing, Ingemanson said.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new
york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">“Well, it’s understandable that people don’t want to sit on the board,” she said. “The (Supreme Court) decision absolutely slammed the state. People are not going to be eager to jump forward and be on a board that has been ruled to be unconstitutional more than once.”</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">When asked of the governor’s thoughts of the recent Supreme Court decision, Kieckhefer said Gibbons and the governor’s office doesn’t comment on matters in the judicial system.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family:
times new roman,new york,times,serif;">“It’s all a part of the process; the governor supports the right of the people to petition the government, but it’s up to the courts,” Kieckhefer said. “We don’t want judges telling us how to run the state, so we don’t tell the courts how to run the judicial system.”</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">For information regarding the tax revolt, visit the Village League’s Web site at <a target="_blank" href="http://nevadapropertytaxrevolt.org">www.nevadapropertytaxrevolt.org</a>.</span></font><br><br><div style="text-align: center;">---------------------------------<br></div><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Village League to Save Incline Assets Board Members:</span><br>- Maryanne Ingemanson, President<br>- Dale Akers, Historian<br>- Les
Barta, Law Research<br>- John Carney, Analyst<br>- Wayne Fischer,
Webmaster<br>- Ted Harris, Tax Revolt Committee Chairman<br>- Todd Lowe, Financial,<br>- Chuck Otto, Public Relations <br><br><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Village League to Save Incline Assets, Inc.</span><br>Non-Profit Corporation - FEIN 88-0399029<br>1165 Vivian Lane, Incline Village, NV 89451<br>Phone: 775-831-4011, Fax 775-831-0325<br>www.NevadaPropertyTaxRevolt.org<br><br># # #<br><br><br><br></div><br></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>