The Property Tax Domino Effect (Atlanta Metro Area)

Link to December 26 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, "Atlanta property taxes: Budgets sink as values fall".

Excerpt:    An historic real estate collapse has hamstrung the economy and erased a decade’s worth of gains in the biggest asset most families have: their home.

Metro Atlanta governments are struggling as plummeting real estate values take a toll on property taxes, their biggest source of revenue.

An investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found the five largest metro counties cut property values that help determine tax bills by $24.3 billion dollars, or 6 percent, in 2010. But in many cases, it wasn’t enough. Residential values in many areas remain too high.

As county appraisers continue to lower values, property owners might save money on their tax bills. But the savings might come at the expense of services they take for granted.

It’s already happening.

Libraries are closing on weekends. Class sizes are getting bigger. School years are getting shorter. And this may be just the beginning.

JoCasta Zamarippa, Wisconsin's First Latina Legislator

Link to December 26 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article, "Zamarripa ready to take office".

Excerpt: Born and raised on the city's south side, Zamarripa, 34, is known as Joey to her friends. She's single and lives in a south side home owned by her grandmother, a former migrant farm worker from Texas who came to Wisconsin to pick crops but settled here.

The oldest of four children, Zamarripa was raised by a single mom who worked in food service and restaurants all her life.

Zamarripa attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was a film major and received a bachelor of fine arts degree.

After graduating she worked for the Southside Organizing Committee as a part-time organizer and office manager. In 2005 she worked for Fair Wisconsin and its campaign opposing the 2006 amendment to the state Constitution recognizing marriage as being between one man and one woman. She joined Planned Parenthood in 2007 in its public affairs office. When she was laid off in 2008, she worked on Milwaukee's Paid Sick Days campaign, then returned to Planned Parenthood where she is an educator and community outreach coordinator. She plans to leave that job at the end of the year.

"I feel I've been doing public service since I graduated from college," she says. "I think it was a natural progression to become a candidate."

University of Wisconsin Digital Collections: Bunny Berigan, Fox Lake's Own

Link to December 17 Beaver Dam Daily Citizen article, "Digital collection gives access to Berigan history".

Excerpt: Bunny Berigan was a well known trumpet player who grew up in Fox Lake, and went on to have a career in New York and playing with such bands as Benny Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers and Paul Whiteman in the 1930s and 1940s.

The work was made possible by a Library Services and Technology Act grant awarded to the Fox Lake Public Library. This collection is now part of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.

Melissa McLimans, digital services librarian at the UW Digital Collections Center contacted the library when the project was done.

"The material on the site is great and the pictures are just wonderful," McLimans said. "I cannot wait to begin the publicity on this awesome collection. You and your people did an excellent job."

Applying for the grant was first proposed by Rhonda Puntney, who works for the Mid-Wisconsin Federated Library System of which the Fox Lake Public Library is a member.

She had taken a vacation in New Orleans and while there had a conversation with some musicians who asked her where she was from. When she told them Wisconsin they immediately said Bunny Berigan was from Wisconsin.

She told them "I am a member of the Bunny Berigan Jazz Jubilee committee that puts on the three day event in Fox Lake, every year."

That planted a seed in her mind and when she returned home she contacted the Fox Lake Public Library to ask how many things about Bunny could be included in a digital collection. Upon making a personal visit to the library and seeing the scope of the materials she decided that there were at least 1,000 pages of written material about Bunny and probably 200 pictures.