On Thursday September 25 in My View, Mr. Garcia, the chair of the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, started bashing our City Council. I take offense to this, because it is evident that Mr. Garcia does not under stand the law. I state this point referring to Indiana Code 36-6-8-10, which clearly states that the county fiscal body shall fund the Township Assessor's Offices. The law does not allow the fiscal body to arbitrarily place these budgets in the County Assessor's budget and it does not allow these to be unfunded. I think it is also an insult to say $2.6 million dollars is going to save this county when the county produces a $1.1 BILLION budget and 40% is placed on property taxpayers backs. Let me clear up another point for Mr. Garcia. Before House Bill 1001, there were only 141 Township Assessor's in Indiana. These were full time assessors and were located in the largest township in the State of Indiana. The remaining townships within the state had trustee/assessors. These were part-time assessors because of the lack assessments they had to perform. Which most of these offices had already turned over the assessing of real property to their county assessors. Also, by eliminating these elected officials the state removed a review of the work being done because there is one less review of the county assessor's work at the local level, and also the State has removed a level of appeals work with the township assessors that does benefit the taxpayer. Mr. Garcia, I am also interested in your thoughts on this ordered reassessment by the Governor. Since this was done by a private out of state firm, we have had 24 appeals resolved as of the end of August. These appeals had increased assessed values of $27 million, however the County Assessor and the PTBOA has given back $26.29 million of it back to this taxpayers. It looks as if the Township Assessors were RIGHT all along with their assessments. I guess I should bring this point to Mr. Garcia's attention, the township assessor did perform the original work, however, the County Assessor and the DLGF had oversight of all of this work and they approved this and even certified the work of the Township Assessor work. So as Mr. Garcia states in his view that the system is broken! If this is the case, then it is broken at the top not the bottom, I can state this because everyone of the duties the township assessors perform are reviewed by their respective county assessors and the DLGF (state office of assessing, which their commissioner is appointed by the Governor). This make is clear we near to VOTE NO on referendum #1 on Nov. 4th. Address: 351 Transfer Drive Phone: 273-4150 Michael B. McCormack Wayne Township Assessor