Good morning again.

Let's see if we can do this again.

We now have a quorum for us.

This is March 25th, 2026, Value Adjustment Board for Hillsburg County.

Would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge allegiance is the United States of America Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God for liberty.

Thank you.

Purpose of our meeting today is approve phase one recommendation recommended decisions, approve of minutes from the last meeting and handle other VAB matters.

The VAB, the VAB welcomes comments from petitioners about any issues or concerns related to their petition or processes of the value adjustment board.

Anyone wishing to speak before the value adjustment board during public comma apportion can do so by either signing up here in person or online virtually we will be calling on speakers by name in the order which the emails or public comment here in person were received, and all callers will be muted and unmuted in the submission after they have been recognized by the chair name.

Three minutes will be allowed for each speaker.

We're going to begin public comment with uh Miss Nancy Sneed and then with Miss Kara Groves.

Are either those here in person or are they online?

Miss Sneed.

Okay.

Is Miss Groves here in person?

Okay.

Mr.

Marlon Briggs.

Would you come up, sir?

Good morning, sir.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I uh I didn't do nothing.

Yeah, you're good enough.

Okay.

My name is Marlin Briggs.

I petitioned uh piece of property that I had back in 2021.

They adjusted the values, but never went ahead and activated on those and uh considered it being reduced.

So it's just been a continuous, continuous increase of more than uh allowed 10% on a non-homested property.

And then finally, when I built the home that I've been working on for six and a half years, they jacked my property tax up to eleven thousand four hundred dollars, which it's just a modest two-bedroom, two-bath, two-car garage with an open carport.

And I have no idea why those values, and I had a petition that I went for the hearing, and I explained to him, and he understood that, gave him my appraisal.

Well, from the 2022 appraisal of the home, there was no home on it.

But I had already reduced the land value, but they never implemented that throughout the following two and a half years that whenever it came and they taxed me on with the home on it, it was elevated.

It was elevated to a ridiculous amount to where I was paying $2700 just for the land, and then you'd think, oh, okay, the house would maybe be $3,500 for a modest two-bedroom two-bath home, then it'd be about $52 to $6200 for the property tax.

That's without being homesteaded.

But no, it was jacked up to $11,412.

And now the property, being how I've been in this process of the petition and this hearing, where I'm at $12,228 for a two-bedroom, two-bath home per year.

I can't afford that.

I'd have to sell the home and move somewhere else.

That's just a that's unacceptable expense to me.

And I actually uh petitioned to Steve Sidebottom.

He's for the uh property appraiser's office, and he understood where I was coming from, and I showed him how the previous years I was never implemented that reduction that I petitioned for previously.

And there were some medical issues I had gone through, like uh I had a stroke in August of 2022, and then I had another stroke in April 2023.

So there was times where there's I couldn't do anything, anything.

And now I'm at the point where hey I I need to slow down.

I don't uh I'm kind of retired now, but I just can't do the things I used to do.

So it takes me eight days to do something, it used to take me six hours.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Can you provide any background for us?

Um my understanding, uh, Mr.

Briggs is this is for petitions number 1669 and 1666.

Is that correct?

Those are the two petitions before the board.

The one I'm speaking about is the 1666.

Yes, the 1669.

Mr.

Sidebottom was forwarded over all the pictures of the flooded area on that property.