I’m old enough to remember when Democrat St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner was carrying the water for the established Republican party. She dutifully prosecuted former Gov. Eric Greitens, who was not a member of the established Republican power structure. She was later accused and punished for professional misconduct in her prosecution of Greitens.
In an age-old political tradition, the establishment has now figured out that she’s a liberal prosecutor that has been weak on crime and caused a mess and demanding that she resign after a criminal out on bond crashed his car into a family visiting St. Louis. It’s stunning if you have a memory longer than two or three days.
The number one rule in local politics is they “eat their young” eventually. If you get power and use that power, you can expect someone to come after you if you don’t get out soon enough on your own. Kim Gardner is a goner. Stayed too long.
In other news, Platte County has a strong prosecutor and judges and you don’t have to worry about this kind of nonsense. I’ve poked fun at Prosecutor Zahnd for his treatment of gaming machines that he once had demolished by a track hoe in a public display. But, his office treats criminal behavior with equal severity, just less track hoe, and that treatment of crime makes a difference as the urban crawl becomes more of the Platte County reality.
It is not currently legal to attack convicted criminals with track hoes, hence the differences in punishment.
Foley mentioned the assessor’s office last week and I’ve been thinking about real estate assessments a lot lately. This is the kind of weird things that keep me up at night. Anyway, according to the Platte County Assessor’s office web page, real property is reassessed every odd year to ensure that property values reflect current market values.
“Current market value” is going to be very debatable over the coming year.
You are going to want to watch what the county does with your values because the summer of 2022 values are likely going to be different than the values of January of 2023, and you’re going to want the January 2023 value unless you like paying taxes. In 20+ years of being in the real estate business, I’ve never seen a market that has whip sawed so quickly. It is going to be especially difficult for the assessment modeling programs to arrive at values that are current and don’t just spit out the crazy numbers that are generated from the sales in the summer of 2022.
I predict a HUGE number of disagreements in values and that means the board of equalization is going to probably replace the health department as the most talked about government entity in the next year, which the health department would presumably appreciate.
I’m slowly working into my Royals phase of the year. I expect to be angry sooner than later. The experts are predicting another 100-loss season. The season is going to be one long sales pitch for a new ballpark and the mind numbing “building for the future” tag line for the on-field product. Expect the “airport treatment” of the stadium. Less maintenance and the like to convince us we need a new one, probably won’t even be able to charge your phone, that’s the quickest way to get support for a billion or so dollars for new stuff.
(Guy Speckman can be reached waiting outside the courthouse for a board of equalization meeting in July)