Heavy Hitters!

WV Assessor sues to keep tax maps off of the internet

Wonder what she is trying to hide? Why not let public information be public? Is it too easy to spot disparity in assessments and find "sweetheart deals"? Anyone else' curiosity piqued?

As I understand it....a private company requested the county's tax maps. Gatson wanted $167,488.00 for them in an obscure format. Company filed a FOIA request for them and beat her in court (wonder what that cost)?. Court ruled that she was only entitled to $20 for an electronic file. Company now intends to publish them on the internet so that anyone can have that information with out the hassle (and fees) of another FOIA fight.

Gatson is now trying to claim that they are copyrighted and is suing to stop them.

Your tax dollars at work!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080207-w-virginia-assessor-fights-effort-to-put-tax-maps-online.html

Where is the local press on this?
This is one story that I want to follow.

Apewith Gun. Thanks for the post, I missed this one in papers.

You ask...(Wonder what she is trying to hide?).. She is most likely doing this because of exposeing the Kanawha county good ole gals and boys county "system". Maps for the Internet today, but what will they want tomorrow. ?...The Gaston sisters are well known for don't do as I do, but do as I say Kanawha county employees. They despise people that upshur authority over them ! Their mindset is "I" own this county office,and you cannot get me out of office because I and my sister are "charter members" in the Kanawha county one political party "system..

My hat is off to the Seneca Technologies for obtaining the FOIA to get theses county tax maps. This will be a blow to "Gastons" and other county employees ego !... The Gaston sisters and others at the Kanawha county court house are living in the dark ages of letting public information get in the wrong hands such as the general public. Thats why the WWW is a great tool for the public to gain knowledge about what is going on around them, wheather its city, state or national public information..

Viva La Bill Gates.

I can't wait to see those tax maps.


I hope it becomes a catalyst for reviewing and decreasing the taxes here as well as reviewing and appropriating the budget funds. I also hope it means getting the Gatson's out of office.

As all good socialists know: The public is too stupid to understand; the public need only follow their leaders and pay the bills.

thank the straight ticket voter.

As you all know I work for the assessor, in the mapping dept as a matter of fact.

I know it will suprise you but even I think the maps should be free to the public.

Allthough I was allways under the impression that the copyright was owned by the State Tax Dept, not the county. In fact if you want a copy of a tax map you cant get it here. You must go to the State Tax Dept and buy one from them.

Word of warning about tax maps. They are not surveys many many times they are NOT accurate. I have seen parcels located 100s of feet from where they should be. These maps where orginally made to be work maps to show a relative position of peoples prop for our filed guys.

ApewithGun wrote:WV Assessor sues to keep tax maps off of the internet

Wonder what she is trying to hide? Why not let public information be public? Is it too easy to spot disparity in assessments and find "sweetheart deals"? Anyone else' curiosity piqued?

As I understand it....a private company requested the county's tax maps. Gatson wanted $167,488.00 for them in an obscure format. Company filed a FOIA request for them and beat her in court (wonder what that cost)?. Court ruled that she was only entitled to $20 for an electronic file. Company now intends to publish them on the internet so that anyone can have that information with out the hassle (and fees) of another FOIA fight.

Gatson is now trying to claim that they are copyrighted and is suing to stop them.

Your tax dollars at work!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080207-w-virginia-assessor-fights-effort-to-put-tax-maps-online.html

The state wanted the money BTW not the assessor.

When the state declined to fulfill the FOIA request and insisted that Seneca pay $8 for each of the 20,936 TIF images (a total of $167,488), the company filed a lawsuit to force the agency to comply with its obligations under the FOIA. The Judge ruled in favor of Seneca, noting that the state law requiring payment applied only to paper maps and not digital copies. The tax department was forced to provide the entire collection of maps for a single payment of $20 to compensate it for the total reproduction costs

Chisom wrote:

ApewithGun wrote:WV Assessor sues to keep tax maps off of the internet

Wonder what she is trying to hide? Why not let public information be public? Is it too easy to spot disparity in assessments and find "sweetheart deals"? Anyone else' curiosity piqued?

As I understand it....a private company requested the county's tax maps. Gatson wanted $167,488.00 for them in an obscure format. Company filed a FOIA request for them and beat her in court (wonder what that cost)?. Court ruled that she was only entitled to $20 for an electronic file. Company now intends to publish them on the internet so that anyone can have that information with out the hassle (and fees) of another FOIA fight.

Gatson is now trying to claim that they are copyrighted and is suing to stop them.

Your tax dollars at work!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080207-w-virginia-assessor-fights-effort-to-put-tax-maps-online.html

The state wanted the money BTW not the assessor.

When the state declined to fulfill the FOIA request and insisted that Seneca pay $8 for each of the 20,936 TIF images (a total of $167,488), the company filed a lawsuit to force the agency to comply with its obligations under the FOIA. The Judge ruled in favor of Seneca, noting that the state law requiring payment applied only to paper maps and not digital copies. The tax department was forced to provide the entire collection of maps for a single payment of $20 to compensate it for the total reproduction costs

Okay. But why is the ASSESSOR the one that's suing Seneca to keep them from going public?

Please excuse me... I'm not familiar with taxes and paper maps.

dont know, does not make sence to me either.

http://wvgazette.com/News/200802110585

Kanawha asks court to look at Web maps
County postpones request to stop free online tax maps

CallmeSue wrote:Where is the local press on this?
This is one story that I want to follow.

I contacted Rusty Marks at the Gazette on this story along with some friends at the Daily Mail. I was wondering if it might make the front page... it did.

Kudos!

The "news crew" at WVTS must have read the paper this morning.

Jerry wrote:

CallmeSue wrote:Where is the local press on this?
This is one story that I want to follow.

I contacted Rusty Marks at the Gazette on this story along with some friends at the Daily Mail. I was wondering if it might make the front page... it did.

I was hoping you would run with it......I regret the title of the post but the article was referred to me by a professional contact of mine and I was embarrassed when it read it and hadn't gotten over it when I posted here.

I changed the title to better reflect the topic in case any outsiders needed to find it and read it here.

I'm also in contact with the company, and sent them the Gazette editorial this morning.

Also, in case anyone's interested: The complaint is that you cant see the maps easily. On line... you cant. All you have to do is RIGHT click on the LINK TO THE MAP YOU WANT and save that to a file. You then open it in your photo program as a very large easily readable map.

Last night I looked up every property in my neighborhood to see how they were assessed compared to mine. Most seemed fair for 2006. (In other words... the houses for the most part were close in value.)