MADERA – The Internet went wild this last weekend when the Madera Tribune falsely published an editorial comment about a public hearing at an upcoming Madera County Board of Supervisors meeting regarding a fee increase in the Assessors Office.
The post appeared on the newspaper’s Instagram page inviting the general public to comment on the fee increase with the hashtag #NoMore. It caused several homeowners to believe that either their property taxes were increasing or fee increases would affect their properties in the county. In reality, the assessor’s fees that will be discussed at the July 11th meeting have nothing to do with property taxes and will not cost the county property owners one dime.
Once the acting editor of the newspaper, Tyler Takada, learned the details of the public hearing, the post was removed, and a retraction notice was issued with an apology to the Board of Supervisors and the assessor Monday morning. The retraction and apology have since been removed from the internet without explanation or comment from Takada.
According to Madera County Assessor Brett Frazier, the public hearing is actually about increasing fees for third-party companies that buy bulk data from the county that, in turn, they sell to websites like Zillow and other real estate sites. This type of data is not specific to a single address but involves the property characteristics of the entire county. The proposed increase will affect around 5 to 10 companies that purchase this information from this county and every other county in the state.
At this point, Madera County has the lowest fees in the state for this data, and this increase is an attempt to bring the fees more in line with other counties in the valley. Madera County’s fees are currently $250, whereas Fresno County’s fees are $15,000. This increase will raise the fees immediately to $1250 and, over the next eight years, raise it to $2500.
“Everyone should see the notice. The problem was the context put under the notice. It was misleading saying that this would be a new fee to homeowners. This fee has been in place for over 40 years and is for data characteristics for the entire county. No homeowner in Madera County will be affected unless they decide to buy the whole data file. Property characteristics data for homeowners will still remain free of charge. Just contact the Assessor’s office.”, Frasier told Big Valley News.
By state law, the county must publish a public notice in an adjudicated newspaper that serves the county affected by the public hearing topic. These notices are published at least twice before the hearing date to notify the public of the hearing. The Madera Tribune is the adjudicated newspaper for Madera County. Currently, websites like Big Valley News are not allowed adjudication, but there has been some talk in Sacramento about legislation that would change that.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: In the meantime, please be assured that the information you receive from Big Valley News is, to the best of our ability, one hundred percent accurate. For twenty-five years, we have strived never to publish a story in which we did not have physical possession of the public records or documentation backing up anything we have shared with the public. We also refrain from soliciting editorial comments from the non-editorial staff, let alone the advertising sales staff.
