County just billed me $8,000.00

Bruce from Can. · Nov 7, 2014

A few local jerks, who have bought some wet pasture farms, petition the county to have the municipal drain cleaned out. This way they could drain these poor wet farms they bought for very little, and grow the good old cash crop rotation of wheat,corn soy. So everyone on the water shed gets to pay for this. One of my farms is in this water shed,166 acres, and my share of this $3,000,000.00 boondoggle is 8 grand. Due in March 2015, and if I don't pay , it will be add to my property tax bill. Sure hope the jerks that brought this on the rest of us like growing $4 corn. Bruce

John T · Nov 7, 2014

As a Country Lawyer, I get a lot of questions regarding property and line fence disputes and the county did this or that and unfortunately, its tough to fight city hall especially since they slap a lien on your real estate and its tough and expensive to get that removed until you do as they say grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Sure you can hire an attorney and fight it, but how long before legal fees eat up anything you might save grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

DONT BLAME ME but I understand you having tried myself to fight the Federal Government for years IM GONNA GET MAD NOW LOL........

Best wishes and good luck

John T

rrlund · Nov 7, 2014

That happened here back in the 60s with a place just west of here. Two brothers owned that farm for a long time but wanted to farm that swamp. Just a few years after it was drained,they quit farming and put the place in what was called the Soil Bank at that time. A ten year deal where nobody could farm it. The whole thing grew back up to brush.

Mike M · Nov 7, 2014

Don't you have tree huggers or ducks unlimited up there to get involved and save it as a natural wet lands ?
That's what they seem to do here in Ohio.
At least if it is farmed then maybe you won't have as bad a mosquito problem as if it was left wet lands.

paul · Nov 7, 2014

The eternal water wars.

Dry areas fight and cheat to get it away from others, wet areas fight and cheat to dump it on someone else.

I bet it was just the same on the Nile river back as the pyramids were being built, water for fields, water off this stuff...

County just cleaned our 14 mile ditch out last year, $180,000. Owning low ground as the second to bottom farm on the ditch, I gladly paid my bill. Only way I can farm this farm, and 10,000 acres of water flows through past my fields.

Paul

Tech 7 · Nov 7, 2014

Here in this province the "Tile Drainage Act" enabled the draining of land that never should have been farmed in the first place.

sourgum · Nov 7, 2014

We have that on our prop tax statements. Some are called (name) ditch assessments. When they drained the land 100 yrs ago the county formed county drains or sometimes called court drains to maintain the drains be they ditches or large tile lines. Our assessments are according to the size watershed the land resides in. They vary from 20 to 300-400 dollars per year on top of prop tax.(Indiana) This was all done by county government and has nothing to do with federal government. I would check your amount at county office it sounds unbelieveably high.

RGMartin · Nov 7, 2014

It seems just a few days ago, a certain Canuckian was praising their municipal drainage system... Guess he never had to foot the bill(A little to much socialism for my taste).

davpal · Nov 7, 2014

Just had it happen in our area of michigan. Same exact situation. Only ours was 81 miles of ditch and cost over 6 million. Get to pay it on our property taxes for the next 20 years. It ended up being about two of my take home pay checks from my job being thrown right out the window of the car for the next 20 years. Nice huh?

ih_bug · Nov 7, 2014

that sounds high. are you close to the outlet? did you have a bunch of work done ? bridges put in/water holes dug?
I was under the understanding that those that benefited the most payed a higher percentage.
maybe the municipality forgot to pay there share?

Bruce from Can. · Nov 7, 2014

Guess it all depends on who's ox is being gored! While I get little to no benefit from this drain work, I get to pay for it.Bruce

Bruce from Can. · Nov 7, 2014

The bill for the engineering work alone was over$900,000.00 , bunch of pirates. County paid about one third, in the form of a grant. Then the balance was divided up so much per acre on the water shed area. Doesn't matter if you have out lets or not. Even folks with a one acre house lot get to share the cost. Bruce

Ken Macfarlane · Nov 7, 2014

I guess I can't complain, here they clean out the ditches for free but only once it covers the roads deep enough people can't get through.

Traditional Farmer · Nov 7, 2014

Guess thats another reason to like farming hilly/mountain type land water won't stay here unless they repeal the law of gravity.In the US they'd be stopped for draing a wetland most likely

IH2444 · Nov 7, 2014

Kinda like when public sewers are put in. You MUST hook up or have your property condemned and the cost is thousands of dollars.

Dick2 · Nov 7, 2014

My Dad joined a group of landowners in about 1947 that dug 1.5 miles of deep ditch with a hired dragline to keep it off the property taxes. The ditch cost was about 1/3 of what it would have cost the county drain system to dig. Those men were all survivors of the 1930's when the all struggled to pay their taxes.

Thirty years later the ditch needed to be cleaned; the next generation put the ditch cleaning on the taxes so they didn't have to come up with a 1-time share.

tom upton · Nov 7, 2014

Was this in City of Kawartha Lakes or Brock? I have always assumed (sounds like wrongly) that ditch clean out is covered on your tax bill, and is considered routine maintenance? The ditch in front of my place has got to the point where it is backing up the tile drain outlet. So over a year ago I asked the COKL what I had to do to get it cleaned out. They assigned my request a number, but have not heard from them since. I can not see how they can charge for maintenance.

Bruce from Can. · Nov 7, 2014

Yes Tom City of Mistakes. You are just north of me on 46 , and I would think your farm like my home place drain into Lake Simcoe water shed. My farm down on the Penile road , drains into the Lake Scugog water shed, via the Short drain. The ditch you are asking about, is it the one on the road allowance? Some day you and I should meet, I hear you have a nice collection of Oliver/ Cockshutt tractors. Bruce

37chief · Nov 7, 2014

I don't like those kind of surprises either. The city is making me hook up an old house on our place to city sewer. The permit fees weren't too bad, until I found out I had to pay over 18,000.00 thousand back to the guy who installed the sewer main 15 years ago. Mom could have paid it when it was 9,000.00. It has been gaining 6 % interest all the years since it was installed.. I guess if it were me I would like my money back, but 6% interest is way out of line. Stan

Tim(nj) · Nov 7, 2014

Ya, 'here' if you pee within 100 feet of something like that you get fined and/or jailed . . . . Can't drain anything that has been determined wetland, even if it is 'farmable'.

Just Bill · Nov 8, 2014

Bruce This is why I try to attend all council meetings.. What county and township are you in? I would suggest you get to-gether with your neighbours and elect a representative , Make an appointment to make a presentation to council. Get everyone to attend. To bad this did not happen before the election. Is this ditch necessary? How many would benefit? what happened to user pay?

Owen Aaland · Nov 9, 2014

Sometimes you end up with assessments you can't do much about. My wife inherited some land in central MN. The school district there just passed a bond for a new school. The taxes are going up 40% to pay for it, for the next 30 years.

Bret4207 · Nov 9, 2014

(quoted from post at 10:49:04 11/08/14) Bruce This is why I try to attend all council meetings.. What county and township are you in? I would suggest you get to-gether with your neighbours and elect a representative , Make an appointment to make a presentation to council. Get everyone to attend. To bad this did not happen before the election. Is this ditch necessary? How many would benefit? what happened to user pay?

I agree. I listen tot he local news out of Ottawa (580) a lot and some of the stuff that goes on needs people fighting it. Works the same here. Most people are "too busy" to to attend meetings and make a stink. For $8K I could attend a lot of meetings!

County just billed me $8,000.00

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