Like a switch being thrown, we’re now in summer. The sun is baking while the air remains just a bit cool. The mix seems a great combination for cloud formation and I can’t get enough clouds.

But enough about clouds. Let’s talk about real estate. The first chart shows the appraised value of my house in Idaho. I could have shown taxes paid over the same period of time, but the chart would have shown the same pattern.

This second chart shows the taxes paid on a house in Ashland that Annette and I both like and has recently reappeared on the market.

I wanted to show appraised value, but the most recent appraisal available online was 2003, which was the same as 2002, and as 2001. It would seem Ashland is less interested in keeping appraisals up to date. But since tax revenue is increasing, there’s little urgency to keep up with appraisals which might show a decrease in value. Why are taxes increasing? Ashland keeps jacking tax rates and adding special assessments to cover the massive debt of the disastrous Ashland Fiber Network and the Ashland Wastewater Treatment plant. So, by holding appraisals at inflated levels from years back and increasing taxes and fees, the town postpones the downward spiral Boise is suffering.

In case you’re wondering about the Ashland Fiber Network, here’s a pretty good quote that sums it up:

Launched in the late 1990s, AFN accumulated a debt of $15.5 million because of higher-than-expected construction and operation costs, as well as stiff competition from Charter Communications.

I can still remember the day i first learned about Ashland beyond what i already knew. It was in Saint Paul. A woman i was working with spoke of Ashland like it was a kind of Shangri-La run by visionaries. “Double PhDs bag groceries so they can live there” was her assertion. “And they are running fiber-to-the-door for every resident. It will be the most connected place in the United States.”

Having recently lived through the dot com bubble in New York City I was silently skeptical such a plan would ever fly, but i remembered her words and her enthusiasm. And now that i’m actually living here i find the following image snagged by my hipstamatic to be eminently symbolic of the town as i’ve come to know it.