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Stuart Revercomb

Stuart Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.

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March 29, 2001

Psyched Out On The Car Tax

Everyone knows the old saying, "be careful what you wish for" - and I certainly have my share of learning experiences as far as that adage goes :

- The time my dad agreed to buy me the "all you can eat fried shrimp" while vacationing in Maine. 7 year olds probably shouldn't be exposed to unlimited amounts of anything - not the least of which is fried shrimp. I'll spare you the details of that little outing.

- The time I convinced the amusement park attendant to let me ride the "Cloud Nine" even though I wasn't of proper height. The centrifugal force was so great that the tears of terror flowing from my eyes went directly into my ears.

- The time I "eeked" into the last slot in a course entitled "Psychological Statistics". Lets just say the final grade didn't exactly fortify the old GPA.

But lately it seems to be a variation of the rule that seems to be the more common pitfall -"Be careful what you agree to."

Recently a friend advised me of the situation he and his neighbors faced in Huntsville Alabama, where a large suburban church faced a difficult parking situation. Apparently the church and it's surrounding neighbors had been at odds for some time about church members parking throughout the neighborhood when the main lot was full. So when the neighbors received a "kindhearted" letter from the church cordially asking them what they could do to improve their presence in the community the neighbors almost universally replied, "DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE PARKING SITUATION !"

And that's exactly what they did. 3 months later the church received approval from the city to build a multi-tiered concrete parking garage where the parking lot had once been. Its just a hunch, but my guess is that all those letters came in mighty handy when the church made its request to the zoning board. Several court battles later a compromise on its height was reached.

So much for the golden rule.

The recent hullabaloo surrounding Virginia's car tax seems to be a pretty good case of a community of people agreeing in principle to something that didn't exactly turn out the way most had envisioned.

When I first heard the good Governor's proposal at the beginning of his campaign for office it sure sounded good to me, even though the value of the average car that I had driven up until last year meant I'd be saving about 75 cents. Like many people I had visions of the doors being shut and locked on the states most inefficient and cumbersome programs - a cutting of "pork" from the Commonwealth's budget that might give many Virginians a well deserved break in the process.

We got a break alright.

Recent coverage of the Virginia General Assembly makes it clear that under Gilmore's present car tax plan state employees and college faculty will not get raises and local governments will receive no state funds to increase the salaries of public school teachers and sheriff's deputies. Non profit organizations such as the Science Museum of Western Virginia, Mill Mountain Zoo and Explore Park also will also go without state funds to cover significant portions of their operating costs.

And you the lucky citizen will save an average of about $1.53 a week.

If that's not exactly how you thought Big Jim was originally going to pull this thing off, you're not alone. A recent very unscientific poll conducted by Revercomb, Revercomb and Revercomb reveals that support of the "No Car Tax" bill as it now stands has about 1 supporter in 10. That's pretty much an exact reversal of the support the original "premise" of the bill garnered.

Dear Mr. Gilmore - we'd all like cherry's on our Ice Cream Sundays if possible.... we'd just rather you not trade away the Ice Cream to get them.

Shouldn't take a lot of psychology OR statistics to figure that one out.