Property Taxes and Senior Citizens

Property taxes are supposed to be an equal burden on everyone. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Some senior citizens, in Leisure City where I live and throughout Ventura County, are paying as much as 400% more than the norm because of a technicality.

In 1988 the voters of California approved Proposition 90, which gave each county the option of allowing residents older than 55 to take the property tax base of their old home with them if they bought a new home of equal or lesser value elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors did not see fit to accept this opportunity until May 1992. Seniors who moved here from other counties after that date were able to carry forward their low tax base. But those who bought homes in Ventura County between 1988 and 1992--paying high prices at the peak of the real estate boom--were unable to reap this benefit.

The Ventura County Supervisors, recognizing that an adjustment needed to be made, offered temporary tax modification for those caught in the 1988-1992 bind. But this could be revoked at any time. Percy Silver, Al Fox and I have met with Supervisor Kathy Long and with officials of the county tax assessor’s office. They were sympathetic but told us this inequity and financial burden must be addressed by the state Assembly.

Our attempts to take our case to Assemblyman Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks) have not yet received a response. We can only wonder whether his office thinks that the senior citizen constituency is large enough to be of any real concern.

BEN PERRY, Leisure City, Camarillo