IT'S NEVER MY FAULT!!!
NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER,--JIM PAINE—2017-2025
782. Welcome to today’s Blog. And it’s a busy one. Corrupt politicians, the fake news just got faker, marriage questions and a whole lot more. In other words, the usual. I want to start with an article from the Superior Telegram from March 4, 2025 and I want to make comments on it as we go along instead of my usual format. So here it is:
City of Superior finds new assessments taxing
The tax-exempt city had to pay taxes following new assessments, law change
By Shelley Nelson - Superior Telegram
SUPERIOR — Residents weren’t alone in their surprise over higher property tax bills for 2024. The city of Superior, which is exempt from most property taxes, received several property tax bills of its own.
New assessments and changes in property tax law resulted in the city paying more than $47,000 in property taxes for buildings it doesn’t even own; the city only owns the tax-exempt land beneath them. The city also paid more than $24,000 in taxes for facilities it owns on Barker’s Island but leases to Sailboats Inc. to operate the marina. At least some of the dollars have already been or may later be recouped. Some taxes paid by the city were legitimate because the city purchased taxable property after the Jan. 1, 2024, assessment date, said Finance Director Nick Rhinehart. He said under the new law, the city cannot exempt those properties until the taxes are paid. Those parcels will be exempt in 2025, he said.
Taxed without ownership
New state law eliminated personal property taxes — the mechanism by which the city collected taxes from individuals and businesses with hangars at the Bong Memorial Airport, as well as two businesses in North End and one small business on Barker’s Island that lease land from the city.
Collectively, they paid more than $70,000 in personal property taxes in 2023 based on a cumulative $3.9 million assessed value for buildings, equipment and furnishings, according to city records.
However, eliminating the personal property tax didn’t apply to real property — buildings, improvements and fixtures — on leased land, said Jennifer Bacon, communications director with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. As the only listed owner, the city ended up paying taxes on $3.2 million in value for buildings it doesn’t own.
State law provides two processes to list and value buildings, improvements and fixtures on exempt land, Bacon said. They include updating the existing parcel’s listing and value to include all buildings, improvements and fixtures, or creating a separate parcel specifically for the buildings and other infrastructure.
During the revaluation process, the real property values were added to the city-owned parcels, according to assessment records. Documents needed to create separate parcels for real property were not filed with the Douglas County Register of Deeds, said Darcie Burbul, register of deeds.
At the airport, the city would have to have certified survey maps to create separate parcel numbers because multiple buildings are located on a single parcel, Rhinehart said. He said he anticipates the city having the same issue next year.
Rhinehart said in cases where the city paid the taxes upfront for buildings it doesn’t own, the city has supplied invoices to the building owners based on the building’s value to collect the taxes owed. In most cases, the city has already been reimbursed for its costs, the finance director said.
Taxed despite exemption
Barker’s Island Marina has left city officials perplexed, however built by the city in the late-1970s, the land, buildings, marina slips and charter dock are all owned by the city. It’s operated through a lease with Sailboats Inc.
While Sailboats Inc. has paid personal property taxes at the marina, Rhinehart said that was for things like equipment and furnishings because the buildings are owned by the city. The city was assessed for more than $1.6 million for the improvements it owns at the marina.
Superior Mayor Jim Paine said the marina should never have been assessed. “The city received the notice, and it caused a great deal of confusion because that is clearly an exempt property by the law,” Paine said. “That led to us, this year, we issued a rescission because it was mistakenly assessed. We have an internal power if it was clearly a mistake — not a difference of opinion in valuation — but a mistaken evaluation. We can correct the mistake.”
By law, if the municipality owns and is the beneficial user of the property, it is exempt from taxation. Despite the rescission, Rhinehart said the city had to pay the taxes to get the property off the tax rolls again; he anticipates the city getting the erroneous taxes paid back next year.
While Sailboats Inc. also benefits from the use of the marina, Paine said the city benefits even more. Under the terms of the city’s lease with Sailboats Inc., the company pays more than half of the gross revenues generated by the marina operation to the city.
“By any standard, that is a city-run property,” Paine said. “Sailboats Inc., I will always support them making money on it. That is the point. That’s what they get out of this, but they are very much doing a service for the people of Superior.”
COMMENTS
783. Excuse me? Do you understand all of this? I kind of do but guess what? It’s not our job to have to. Do you know who’s job it is to know? That’s right. Jim Paine. And guess who appears not to know? Jim Paine. This is also a reason why we hate government. They make all of these confusing laws that even a “Genius” like Jim Paine can’t fully understand.
THE STORY CONTINUES...
Were assessments fair?
Paine said people should check their assessments and ask themselves if it is fair, because there will be new assessments in 2025. The Board of Review meets to evaluate the fairness of updates of assessment rolls each spring.
In general, Paine said if someone could sell their property for its assessed value, it’s a fair assessment. If they couldn’t, he said the city wants to hear from them to get the mistake corrected.
Residential assessments have been certified by the Department of Revenue at 94% of fair market value, according to Paine. But the mayor said commercial assessments — the class of property for which the city paid property taxes this year — appear to have been under-assessed.
“We were not as accurate on the commercial side … we’re going to have to reassess the whole commercial side, which typically means reassessing the whole city,” Paine said.
COMMENTS
784. Hold on here. How would “Business Unfriendly” Mayor Jim Paine know that commercial assessments were not accurate? The fact is the “I know everything” Mayor doesn’t know. I haven’t heard of any commercial property owners screaming that they aren’t being taxed enough. So brace yourselves for substantially higher taxes later this year courtesy of the “Business Killer” Jim Paine. But what’s really weird here is that he is inferring that the residential taxes are accurate. And we know that’s not true. Remember the story I ran about my friend who bought a place for 90K and had an assessment for 100k and got a tax bill in December with an assessment 214k? He could not sell his property for its assessed value, not even close.
BACK TO THE STORY...
The assessor responsible for last year’s assessments no longer works for the city. An open records request by the Telegram related to the assessor’s departure is pending.
COMMENTS
785. I was going to spend some time on this breaking news but there is an update on this story in the next article so I will cover it there.
THE STORY CONTINUES...
The city is currently working to determine how to reassess commercial properties, Paine said. During the reassessment in 2024, all properties increased in value by an average of 60%; residential properties alone increased 70% in value on average.
“The hope is that it offsets the residential” to reassess commercial properties, Paine said.
FINAL COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE
786. I don’t want any more of Jim Paine’s “Hopes”. This is what happens when you have unqualified Mayor like Jim Paine. Instead of trying to fix this tax problem he is doubling down on stupid. I predict that under his terrible leadership the likely outcome for this year’s taxes will be a small decrease in residential taxes and a huge increase in commercial taxes and somehow he expects you to feel good about that. He continues to blame everybody but himself for this mess when really, he is the one who is to blame. The buck stops with him. Here, in my opinion is what he should have done.
When the city saw the assessments back in August or before it should have been obvious to them within about 5 minutes that there was a major problem. They then should have alerted the Mayor. In business it’s called damage control. In my opinion the easiest fix would have been to scrap the assessments and raise the mill rate to reflect a 3% tax increase across the board to residential and commercial property based on the previous year’s taxes. Then the Mayor could have come out with a press release that he was scrapping these assessments, citing many examples of these crazy numbers and will work on a new plan for the following year. But he didn’t, he told you not to worry and said it shouldn’t really affect your taxes. How did he know that? Well, he didn’t did he?
So why didn’t he scrap those assessments, increase the mill rate and move along and work on a new plan for 2025? If he had explained those numbers he might have looked like a bit of a savior. But Jim Paine doesn’t look at things that way. Jim Paine thinks that it would have shown that he had made a mistake, which he did, hiring that outside company to do the assessments. And Jim Paine does not make mistakes. Jim Paine is always right. It’s always every one else that’s wrong. Jim Paine is never, ever, ever wrong. Jim Paine is a lousy leader. And now you are all paying for it.
OUR NEXT ARTICLE IS FROM THE SUPERIOR TELEGRAM
Assessor resigns, city rescinds termination
By Shelley Nelson - Superior Telegram
March 14, 2025
SUPERIOR — Former City Assessor Terry Johnson resigned his post, effectively ending city officials’ plans to terminate the embattled city assessor’s employment.
TERRY JOHNSON
Johnson came under fire after the city, typically tax exempt, received several property tax bills following a citywide revaluation of property values in 2024.
COMMENTS
787. In the previous article in this issue of the blog, the city’s tax exempt issues is difficult to understand. There seems to be rules by different departments. New rules were supposedly introduced in 2024 and on and on it goes. It also states that the city can recoup some or all of those taxes. It’s not something that the average taxpayer like you and me would likely know anything about. But the Mayor should have known these rules and when he got these assessments like the rest of us in August 2024, why didn’t he have a meeting with Terry Johnson, the appraiser and work it out. The other thing is this article and the previous one are hard to understand and in my opinion, not well written or reader friendly. They were both done by none other than Shelley Nelson. I have stated before that when I read most of her articles I usually have more questions than answers. And I find these two articles among the worst. Either that or I am having a complete brain blackout.
BACK TO THE STORY...
“We regret to inform you that your employment with the City of Superior was terminated effective February 4, 2025,” Mayor Jim Paine wrote in a Feb. 18 termination letter. “This decision follows our previous discussions and the severance package offered to you, which you have chosen not to accept.”
It’s unclear when Johnson received the termination letter. He resigned in an email sent to the mayor and human resources staff on Feb. 24, with an effective date retroactive to Feb. 4 — the last day he was at his office.
Johnson said he had a meeting with city officials Feb. 4 and Human Resources Director Cammi Janigo then escorted him to his office. “I grabbed a few pictures and stuff I had at my office and out the door I went,” he told the Telegram.
Paine accepted the resignation Feb. 25.
“The city will consider the termination letter addressed to you and dated February 18, 2025, to be rescinded,” Paine wrote in a Feb. 25 letter. “The termination letter is still considered public record and will be released as requested along with this memo to document the city’s reversal of the termination, unless you succeed in blocking the release.”
Johnson did not seek a court order to block the release.
Johnson said he was still seeking counsel and he didn’t sign the separation agreement because it contained language he didn’t agree with, and he felt the city was trying to put a gag order on him so he couldn’t speak the truth.
COMMENTS
788. Doesn’t this remind you of the “resignation” of City Clerk Camila Ramos back in March, 2023. I will be running a Blog on this in the future.
BACK TO THE STORY…
The details of the proposed separation agreement are not public record because it was never executed, Janigo said.
The termination letter was dated one day after the Telegram requested public records pertaining to leased city-owned land and Barker’s Island Marina for which the city paid property taxes this year. Among the records sought Feb. 17 by the Telegram was “any separation agreement or termination letter” that would explain why Johnson no longer worked for the city as of Feb. 5.
COMMENTS
789. Since Johnson hasn’t worked for the city since Feb. 5th, 2025. how come we did not know about it until now, March 14, 2025? And according to this article Paine and Johnson had a meeting on Jan 31. Shelley Nelson and Mayor Paine are joined at the hip. She knows what he’s having for lunch before he does. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had keys for each others homes. And back in Dec. 2022, when Paine put out that retarded last minute letter to councilors only a couple of hours before the council’s meeting to vote on Jordan Wheat’s application for a license for the Palace, guess who was also sent that letter. Yep, Shelley Nelson. So if she expects me to believe that she didn’t know about any of this until now, well, I don’t believe it. Do you? And where is the “The Cult of Jim Paine” AKA City Council on this? Lots of questions here but not many answers.
BACK TO THE STORY...
“That was just the timeline,” Paine said of the timing of the letter. He said the city had no intention of writing a termination letter, but negotiations for a separation agreement had broken down.
“The termination letter is a pretty necessary part of the process if we get there because employees have right to appeal the termination to the Civil Service Commission,” Paine said. “So we do have to notify a person in writing that they’ve been terminated.”
COMMENTS
790. Paine calls it a “letter”, I call it a “Gag Order” or possibly a cover-up. A "gag order" is a legal order, typically issued by a court or government, that restricts individuals from publicly commenting on or disclosing specific information related to a case or matter.
BACK TO THE STORY...
The Feb. 18 letter included instructions on how Johnson could have initiated an appeal before the Civil Service Commission within seven days of receiving the letter.
According to the Feb. 18 letter, the city had attempted to make contact with Johnson by phone, email, text and home delivery, but had received no response.
“Reasons for your termination were communicated with you at our meeting on January 31, 2025,” Paine wrote in the termination letter. “They include your failed commercial revaluation which is almost certain to trigger the need to begin that process again anew, your unwillingness to reverse an illegal taxation of city-owned property at the Barker’s Island Marina, and your stated unwillingness to continue assisting taxpayers with their questions and concerns following the latest tax assessment cycle.”
COMMENTS
791-Wait a second here. This makes no sense. How does Paine know that the “commercial revaluation” was failed? He is the only one that is pushing this theory. I have not seen any facts to support Paine’s statements. What I have seen is hundreds of people complaining about the “residential revaluations”. And there are plenty of facts to support that. They’re right there in the numbers. Look at your tax bills. The assessor only dealt with commercial property. Associated Appraisal Consultants who the Mayor hired at a cost of $355,000.00 of your tax dollars did the residential appraisals. I don’t see or understand why Mr. Johnson’s commercial appraisals would trigger anything. If anything those appraisals seem more accurate than the residential ones.
So what exactly is the Mayor saying. Is he accusing Terry Johnson of not assessing the commercial real estate at the ridiculous numbers like 50-90% increases that Associated Appraisal Consultants assessed the residential real estate?
As far as as that discombobulated city owned/not owned property tax issue which most of us, including the Mayor as far as I’m concerned, don’t understand and has not been properly explained in this article, comes to $47,000.00. Not much considering the city’s budget is in the millions of dollars and the city said a portion or all of it could be recovered. And you want to fire Terry Johnson for that? You, Jim Paine should fire yourself for not only hiring Associated Appraisal Consultants, but for the way you have handled and conducted yourself from start to finish on this issue.
And by the way the “Jim Paine Mafia” AKA City Council did the following on April 19, 2023:
“The council approved waiving bid requirements and a contract with Associated Appraisal Consultants Inc., for $355,000 for revaluation assessment services”.
Nice job, morons.
BACK TO THE STORY...
Johnson disagreed with that assessment.
“The revalue obviously was a big thing with every property being reviewed,” Johnson said. During that revaluation, he said some previously exempt properties became taxable and some taxable properties became exempt — a determination that is made by the assessor.
“They had the proper notification back in August,” Johnson said, adding that the city didn’t participate in either the open book process or Board of Review, both of which provide taxpayers the opportunity to question or challenge their assessment.
COMMENTS
792. Question for “Cut and Paste” Shelley “The Hack” Nelson. Why didn’t he city participate in either the open book process or Board of Review, Shelley? Shelley? SSSSHHHEEEELLLLLEEEEEYYYYYY!!!!
BACK TO THE STORY
“I attempted to explain to them, they are the taxpayer,” Johnson said of city officials. “They can’t really tell the assessor what to do.”
FINAL COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE
793. In the first article today, on March 4, Shelley Nelson said:
“The assessor responsible for last year’s assessments no longer works for the city. An open records request by the Telegram related to the assessor’s departure is pending. “
FYI Shelley, he has a name, it’s Terry Johnson.
And kudos to him for not signing what sounded like an NDA, or Non-Disclosure Agreement, which is a legally binding contract that protects confidential information by obligating parties to keep certain information secret, often used in business to safeguard trade secrets or sensitive data.
Even though there is a lack of certain information in these two articles, something here doesn’t smell right to me. Kinda of like the bathroom for the cast at that horrible show “The View.”
And Mr. Johnson, if you read this and you would like to get your unedited story out, reach out to me on the Blog and I would be happy to help you. I know what it’s like to be railroaded by Jim Paine and it’s not good.
THE END OF THE WORLD IS UPON US!!!
Telegram named Wisconsin Weekly Newspaper of the Year
SHELLEY NELSON AND MARIA LOCKWOOD
Staff reports
March 14, 2025
MADISON
The Superior Telegram was recognized by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association as the 2024 Wisconsin Weekly Newspaper of the Year.
The Telegram was honored at the WNA convention Friday, March 7, in Madison.
The Newspaper of the Year recognition is based on awards received in the WNA Foundation’s 2024 Better Newspaper Contest. Points are determined by the number of awards received and the places earned. One weekly paper and one daily paper are honored annually.
The Telegram won 29 awards, including 13 first-place awards, earning the most points out of 105 participating newspapers.
For the third consecutive year, the Telegram also won Best in Division for earning the most award points in its circulation category.
COMMENTS
794. What do you want me to say? It’s hard to talk when you are puking. It reminds me when Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for well, doing nothing. What alternate universe do all these people live in? And if you really want to waste your time you can click the link below to see all the 4,976 awards they won.
795. Well that’s it for today. Thanks for reading. See you on the next one.
Thanks
Brian
