High taxes are prompting one resident to head to PA

Posted 18 November 2019 at 11:05 am

Editor:

For the second year I have received an “escrow deficiency” letter from my mortgage company.  Both times now I have been required to pay a lump sum of roughly $950 (plus/minus a few bucks) due to tax hikes, out of pocket to offset this, and my mortgage has increased significantly regardless.

The first year I paid the $950 +/- and my mortgage still went up almost $55 and change. This year I am opting to not cough that cash up because simply put, I do not have it. Because of that, my mortgage is going up again, this time significantly to the tune of an extra $160/month. The math says in 2 years my mortgage has gone up $215 in 2 years… For what?

In 2015 when I purchased my home on South Avenue here in Medina, my mortgage was roughly $540 a month. After the last escrow deficiency my mortgage went up to $595 and some change – keep in mind I coughed up $950+/- just to keep it that low. My new mortgage statement for the month of December 2019 is now $756/month moving forward.

I ask you, what the blue bloody heck has this town done to warrant that kind of hike?  What are we spending this money on?  Where is it going to?  I don’t have kids in school and I don’t use any of the “services” outlined in the towns justification for doing this, not to mention most of the big services I actually need (i.e. water/sewer) are things I pay for out of pocket every 3 months anyways.

I’m a firm a believer in “don’t like it? Change it” So I’m selling my house, and moving out of this godforsaken state. There is no reason that I am paying nearly $3,800 a year in taxes to live in a town with less than 6,000 people on a 1,600 square foot house, in a town with literally nothing to offer but bars to get drunk at and pizza places. I purchased my barely 1600 square foot home for less than 60k and if I follow through with my mortgage full term in this town, I will have invested over $100,000 for seemingly nothing. And I already know this isn’t the end of the tax hikes.

I saw the proverbial writing on the wall early in this year, and thus purchased a home in PA just over the border, where my yearly taxes are roughly $1,150 all-in.

I urge all of you to go to more meetings, voice your opinions loud and clear and most importantly vote them out.

P.S. My house will be on the market or for rent sometime before or right after the new year.

Sincerely,

Leonard Lauricella

Medina