Mutton laid to rest with honors
Rebecca Gourley and Lou Marzeles
The Sentinel
Funeral services for Specialist Christopher Mutton brought tears and laughter to family and friends. The service started at Friday at 11 a.m. at the Columbia Hill Memorial Chapel with a slideshow of pictures of Mutton. Among the pictures were ones that were taken when he was little and when he was in the U. S. Army.
Friends shared stories and fond memories of Mutton. Joni Kayser, whose daughter graduated from Goldendale High School with Mutton, said “I will fondly remember him as ‘Christopher Muffin.’” Kayser’s daughters Jaylynn and Courtney went to day care with Mutton when they were young; Courtney always called him “Christopher Muffin.” Other close friends described Mutton as “an extraordinary person.”
The services ended with Mutton’s platoon presenting his family with a commemorative plaque.
Mutton was just weeks away from being promoted from specialist to sergeant, something that normally happens only after four to five years of training. Mutton was only in the armed forces for two and a half years.
A respectful crowd gathered at Mountain View Cemetery after the service for a graveside ceremony.
Master Sergeant Jeffery Zak from Fort Lewis led a delegation of soldiers at the cemetery services. “It’s an honor to participate,” Zak said. “The military honors its own.”
A military honor guard carried the casket out and placed it, then fired a rifle salute to Mutton. Only a few quiet words were shared at the grave site. The honor guard silently folded the American flag draped over the casket in somber ceremonial fashion; the flag was then presented to Mutton’s family.
County Assessor assesses property valuations, county economic health
Rebecca Gourley
Reporter
Speculation concerning the Klickitat County Assessor’s office has brought many questions forward about the property revaluation process and other economic issues in Klickitat County. Since there was a fair amount of confusion about the process, we sat down with Klickitat County Assessor Harold “Van” Vandenberg to have him explain it.
Assessment of all Klickitat County resident’s homes and properties has been on a four-year cycle. Starting next year, it will be done annually.
There are many attributes that give somebody’s home or property value. “The year a home is built is probably the biggest aspect to calculating the value,” says Vandenberg. How many square feet the home or property is has an effect on the overall value as well. Some other attributes like how many bathrooms there are, what condition the roof is in, and if there is any paint chipping on the sides of the house all affect the value. The sale of the house or property also goes into the mix of calculating the value. However, it may not have a direct effect of the value of the house or property. Each characteristic of the house or property is given a score and then everything is put into the computer and the value is calculated that way.
The assessor’s office keeps track of the people that have questions about their notice of revaluation. Each person that comes in or calls with any question about their notice has a note made for them in the computer system, and then their situation is assessed. As of July 1 of this year, only 328 people have had a question about their notice, out of the approximately 11,000 notices that were mailed out. A county employee handling the question or complaint creates a note in the computer with the employee’s initials, the date and time of the question, and the question that the citizen had.
The assessor’s office is trying hard to cover everyone’s questions in a timely manner, Vandenberg says.
The appeal process for the revaluation is a three-tier procedure. First, a person wanting to appeal their revaluation notice or the value set by the assessor can first go to the Clerk of the Board of Equalization, Chris McEwen. After filling out the forms, the person appealing would then be put on the agenda of the board and have a hearing scheduled. If there is no resolution in this process, then the case would go to the State Board of Tax Appeals, and the same process applies. After this, if there is still no decision, the case would go to Superior Court, where the same process still applies.
Asked about Klickitat County’s overall economic situation, Vandenberg replies, “It’s doing fairly well, compared to the national economy.” Vandenberg added, “Washington State was one of the last states to see a decline in the housing market. Two counties even, Benton and Yakima, saw increases while the rest of the nation was declining.”
Wind farms have given Klickitat County a significant boost, economically speaking. A little over $2 million in taxes is received by the county annually from all of the current wind farm projects.
Right now, the county is spending out of the reserve monies and has been for a few years now. If this continues, the economy of Klickitat County is in for a major down turn. “There will be tightening in the near future [if we don’t stop paying our debts out of the reserved money],” says Vandenberg.
An evaluation of County Assessors’ performance of property appraisal by the state of Washington was found to be unsettling by many community members. The Measuring Real Property Appraisal Performance in Washington’s Property Tax System document describes Klickitat County as failing three levels of assessment: Overall Median Ratio, Residential Property Median Ratio, and Nonresidential Property Median Ratio. This means that Klickitat County failed in Level of Assessment, which measures how close properties are assessed at 100 percent of market value. Asked about the findings, Vandenberg responds, “I haven’t seen this [report], so I can’t make a comment on it.”
A complete copy of the document is available on the Washington State Legislature website. http://www.leg.wa.gov/pages/home.aspx.
Wolf sentenced in murder case
Rebecca Gourley
Reporter
Anita Wolf, convicted last week of second-degree murder for shooting Michael White in June of 2009, was sentenced Tuesday to 232 months (more than 19 years years) in confinement and lifetime supervision by the Department of Corrections.
The maximum Wolf could have been sentenced to was 280 months in confinement and lifetime supervision. The minimum, as requested by the defense, would have been 183 months in confinement and lifetime supervision.
A restitution hearing is to be scheduled for a later date. While in prison, Wolf will be able to earn money to pay off her debt for the trial and restitution money for White’s family. The total amount that Wolf is responsible to pay is undetermined thus far; the jury fee alone is about $6,500.
“We will probably never know exactly what happened here,” said Judge E. Thompson Reynolds, speaking of the vague details of the case presented during trial. White’s stepmother, Kathy White, said a few words before sentencing began.
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