“Boomer” Winfrey

Varmint County Correspondent

While news headlines around the country have been dominated by horror stories about Islamic State terrorists, Ebola and the November elections, very little of that has been discussed in the barbershops, pool halls and taverns of Varmint County.

Around here the major topic of discussion, practically the only topic of discussion for the past couple of months has been “taxes.”

As occurs every two years when county commissioners are up for re-election, it’s difficult for the squires to agree on a property tax rate and budget until the electoral smoke settles and they can take stock of who survived the voters’ wrath. 

This year, in particular, the squires were in no hurry since the county’s insurance premiums spiked while the county’s income from mineral severance taxes and state-shared taxes were down sharply. The result? The squires were staring a hefty property tax increase in the face just to keep the county government in business.

Varmint County’s commissioners, dating all the way back to the days when it was still called a “county court” and each squire was an official justice of the peace, empowered to perform weddings, have never been overly fond of raising property taxes.

This is somewhat of a mystery, since so few Varmint County voters pay them. Many folks in Lower Primroy live in the low income housing project while most residents up around Stinking Creek still rent their run-down shacks from the foreign-owned land company that once established coal camps up and down the creek to house miners’ families.

Elijah Haig pays a hefty tax on the thousand or so acres in his name in Haig Hollow, but most other Haigs simply squat on the land. Most of Haig Hollow was seized by the county half a century ago for non-payment of delinquent taxes. The county tried selling the land at a courthouse sale once, and a lawyer from Cincinnati actually bought up a dozen parcels of land.

He disappeared, however, the first time he traveled to Haig Hollow to inspect his holdings. When the lawyer’s heirs failed to pay the back taxes a few years later, the county ended up with the land again and strangely enough, nobody since has entered a bid on it at subsequent tax sales.

So facing a $500,000 deficit in the county budget this year, our heroes on the county commission were in a quandary about how best to deal with the challenge. Newly elected commissioner and former county mayor Clyde Filstrup Junior argued for dipping into the county’s meager fund balance to make up the deficit.

“Clyde, you know we need that fund balance to run the county during the few months each year before the property tax bills go out. If you use it now, we’ll have to borrow money to run the jail and keep the courthouse open next summer,” Mayor Gabby Aslinger pointed out, adding, “That won’t go over very well with voters when the next election comes around.”

Gabby then paused and reflected, “Oh, that’s right. You plan to run for mayor in the next election, don’t you? You wouldn’t be hoping for a little financial crisis on my watch, would you, Clyde?”

“Well, raising the property tax is out of the question,” Clyde argued. “Our people can’t stand it.”

“You mean your people who own all those million dollar homes out on Mud Lake and your buddies from Philadelphia who control the 30,000 acres owned by the Varmint County Blue Gem Coal Company, don’t you?” Belinda Bandit chimed in.

The debate went on like that for the duration of that meeting, along with the next two meetings, as the deadline for having a budget in place steadily approached. Finally, new commissioner Gertrude Barnwell from the Town of Confusion, formerly known as Pleasant View, came up with a suggestion.

“We could pass a wheel tax! Everybody doesn’t own property but everybody owns a car, or pickup truck or off-road vehicle. We could add the tax to their bill when people come in to renew their license plates,” Gertrude exclaimed.

Belinda Bandit wasn’t crazy about that idea, arguing that a lot of Varmint County folks need their run-down cars to get to the store or the doctor but can barely afford the gas. “What’s fair about charging a mother of four, on food stamps, driving a 1995 Toyota, the same as you charge Clyde Filstrup for his $50,000 Cadillac?” Belinda asked.

But in the end, Clyde preferred paying thirty bucks extra for his license plate to paying for a hefty tax increase on his funeral home business. He convinced most of the men on the commission to join Gertrude in going along with the wheel tax idea. 

The other women on the court - Belinda, Mary Ann Botts and Prunella Pinetar were joined by Hiram Pennywell, who never voted “yes” to spend money or raise a tax during his entire 28-year political career. Their opposition fell short, however, and Varmint County approved a $30 wheel tax to balance the budget.

To say that Varmint County citizens were unhappy with the prospect of shelling out $54 to renew a $24 license plate on their beat-up clunkers would be akin to saying that the residents of Hiroshima were unhappy with the invention of the atomic bomb.

The push back started simply enough. On Friday morning after the Varmint County War Whoop & Exterminator hit the stores with its wheel tax headline, Mayor Aslinger found a strange car sitting in her reserved parking space at the courthouse.

On the windshield of the ancient Chevy Impala was a note that read, “I kept this pile of junk around as a backup in case my truck conked out but I ain’t gonna spend $54 to keep it parked in my back yard. The county can have the d*** thing.” The note was signed by the mayor’s dad, Archie Aslinger.

“Daddy, you’ve got to come down and move this pile of junk away from the courthouse or the Sheriff will have it towed to the impound yard.”

“Fine, daughter. Impound it. I don’t want it no more,” Archie proclaimed.

Corky Hockmeyer got the job of towing Archie’s clunker into Sheriff Hiram Potts’ impound lot, dropping it among a half dozen newer vehicles seized from various drug dealers, pot growers and an armed robber serving time at the state pen.

“Am I gonna have to get wheel tax stickers for my car, my pickup, and my five wreckers?” Corky asked. “That will cost me over two hundred bucks every year.”

“Afraid so, Corky. Every vehicle operating on county roads needs a sticker,” Sheriff Potts replied.

Corky said nothing. Late Sunday night, while most folks were turning in after a long day of church-going, Sunday dinner-eating and football-watching, Corky and his cousins were busy at work over at his junkyard with his five wreckers.

On Monday morning as county employees arrived for work, they had a hard time finding a parking spot. Every space was occupied by a wrecked or worn-out vehicle, ranging from Ford pickups and Volkswagen Beetles to a five-axle concrete truck with a blown engine and leaky concrete cylinder.

Sheriff Potts knew that Corky was behind it all, but could prove nothing as he watched the wrecker driver hook up a minivan with a blown transmission for towing to the impound lot.

“Why don’t you just tow it back to your junkyard, Corky? I know that’s where it came from.”

“Sheriff, I don’t have a clue what yore talking about. I never seen this thing before. Besides, I just cleared out a bunch of old cars over to Burrville last week. Gonna clean up part of the junkyard and put in a fish pond so I ain’t got room for this thing. Guess you’re stuck with it”

“Mayor, my impound lot is full,” the Sheriff complained to Gabby. “What’s more, Toby Pinetar just brought his old Willis Jeep in and parked it in front of the jail. He tossed the keys to my chief jailer and told him it belongs to the county now.”

“Sheriff, our problems are just beginning. I got a call from Coach Snodgrass down at the football stadium. We’ve got a homecoming game coming up on Friday and he says there are around twenty-five old cars and trucks parked on the field.”

“More old wrecks from Corky Hockmeyer?”

“Apparently not. One is Stanley Aslinger’s old backup fire truck. One is Rufus Haig’s rattletrap Thunderbird and another is that old Honda that Fluvia Pinetar won at the Historical Society raffle last month.”

“Looks like every Varmint County driver who owns a spare vehicle or an old clunker in the backyard has decided to stick the county with ’em rather than pay for a wheel tax sticker,” Sheriff Potts laughed.

“We’ll just find a place to stack them until people get over being angry and want their spare cars back,” Gabby replied. “Surely this will blow over.”

A week later, when the county commission met again, it had still not blown over. “How many junk cars have we had to tow and find space for?” Belinda Bandit asked.

“At last count it was right at 856,” the Mayor replied. “That doesn’t count the dozen old motorcycles that Gertrude found piled up in her swimming pool last week.”

Just then Clyde Junior arrived late. “I want somebody arrested,” he sputtered.

“What’s wrong, Clyde, somebody forget to pay you before you buried them?” Virgil “Buck” Snort, commissioner from the Town of Confusion joked.

“I have forty-three old vehicles stacked up in my parking lot and we’ve got a visitation tonight for the Widow McBean. I’m going to have to pay for a shuttle bus from the bank, which is the only parking lot in town still not overflowing with wrecks.”

“Uh, hate to tell you, Clyde. The parking lot of the Varmint County Third National Bank is full up. Somebody parked a row of old coal trucks in front of the drive-in window,” school board chairman Will U. Reade announced from the audience..

“Well, somebody needs to move them off,” Clyde protested.

“Not any time soon. It’s that bunch of worn-out old trucks that were parked up on the backside of McCracken’s Neck in the strip pits. They must have towed them down behind other trucks because there’s not a wrecker in Varmint County large enough to tow them,” Hiram Pennywell cut in.

“This is intolerable!” Clyde complained. “How can we do business or run the county when people are turning Lower Primroy into one big junkyard?”

“I’ve got a suggestion,” Belinda Bandit announced. “Let’s vote to repeal the wheel tax.”

“That might stop the protests but how will we make up the budget shortage without that revenue? We’ve already set the property tax rate at last year’s level,” Gertrude Barnwell asked.

“I think I’ve got an answer,” Gabby Aslinger cut in. “We’ve got nearly 900 abandoned vehicles, counting those in Clyde’s parking lot, plus several coal trucks, a concrete truck and numerous junked motorcycles, golf carts, and somebody even abandoned a single engine airplane without an engine over at the airport.”

“So?” Clyde snorted.

“So how much is all that metal worth at the recycling center in Burrville?” Gabby asked.

“I make a motion to repeal the wheel tax and sell all of the abandoned vehicles now in the county’s possession to pay off the budget shortfall,” Hiram “Doctor No” Pennywell loudly announced.

And so Varmint County’s new commission survived their first trial by fire, no taxes were raised, as usual, and the Lower Primroy Garden Club presented their annual “Beautify Varmint County” award to the county commission for finding a way to rid the county of all the junk car eyesores parked in every yard.