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Letters to the Editor

Property tax questions remain

James Maxson, Minot The many questions I have asked about the elimination of real estate taxes have not been answered. There are more which were not included in a prior article. Minot has a high percentage of sales tax revenue for obvious reasons. Thanks to the grace of God and industrious citizens, Minot is the regional center for law, medical care, shopping, banking, vehicle sales, farm equipment sales, higher education and recreation. Compare that to the Minot trade area. Retail sales in rural North Dakota are on the decline and have been for some time. Compare rural sales tax ...

Learning how to do better

Janet Mathistad, Minot I am responding to Jeffrey Case’s letter in The Minot Daily News this past Saturday. Mr. Case makes the statement that Minot (and one could presume he includes himself) “is an open and tolerant and welcoming community.” Then he goes on to refer to “two women with physical disabilities and a transgender.” Perhaps he simply does not realize how ignorant and unwelcoming it is to refer to a fellow human being as “a transgender,” and is therefore open to learning how to do better. Better would be to say a transgender person, or a transgender woman, or ...

Pay attention to Bill of Rights

Kevin P. Nelson Minot It would seem that few elected officials and even members of the judicial system have studied or even read the U.S. Constitution. Following are three examples of this. First is Amendment 1, commonly called “Freedom of Religion” which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....” The first immigrants to this country came here for this fact. The Pope and the King of England made it mandatory to believe as they thought you should. Wars were fought and people tortured and killed ...

Council’s decision was right for Minot

Jeffrey Case Minot “God rest ye merry, gentlemen Let nothing you dismay Remember, Christ, our Saviour Was born on Christmas day To save us all from Satan’s power When we were gone astray.” Traditional. Songwriters: Robert Janes, Robert Halford. For non-commercial use only. “Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, I wanna to wish You a merry Christmas, From the bottom of my heart.” Randy Edelman, Jose Feliciano. Songwriter: Jose Feliciano. For non-commercial use only. Yes, those are lyrics, and quite appropriate I might add, of ...

Sign petition to eliminate property taxes

Troy Johnson, Williston I see Minot residents received their property tax statements in the mail. Just as a reminder, if you are tired of paying property taxes on property you will never ever own,because if you get sick, lose a job and become unemployed for awhile and find yourself behind on your property taxes, the county, after three years of not paying them, will sell your property out from under you. You work 30 years for your mortgage, pay it off and still never own it. There is a petition going around in the state. I strongly encourage people to sign it. All it does is put ...

Eliminating property tax is best option

Steven Moen, Minot I want to commend James Maxson for his letter about eliminating property tax. He did a great job in asking questions that have already been answered and giving a bunch of misinformation. That said, property tax is not the primary source of revenue for counties, cities or school boards. The state and other taxes that are already in place are. Minot’s city budget only gets 15% from property tax, Ward County gets 30-40%, schools get only 20-30% from property tax. Therefore it is ridiculous to think that by eliminating property tax all the above mentions wouldn’t ...