Minor Thoughts from me to you

Local Oregon homeowners were flooded out last month. Six properties, worth about $1 million total, were significantly damaged. Now the homeowners want the village government to buy their properties -- at their pre-flood value -- so they can start over in a new house.

What?

Johnson said he'll be happy if the village makes him an offer that comes close to what he could get if he sold his house under normal circumstances.

"We know that's a problem area," Staton said of the low-lying section where the homes were built in the mid-1960s. "If I lived there, or if my kids lived there, I'd want to be bought out and be able to live someplace else, " he said.

Mark Below, Oregon 's director of public works, said the developers who put up the homes evidently felt the area was dry enough to build on. "There was no floodplain mapping done at that time, " he said.

Village Trustee Jon Lourigan said if federal and state funding falls through, the village should use taxpayer dollars to buy the homes.

...buying the properties without outside assistance would be an enormous purchase for a village whose operating budget this year is $4.8 million.

This is what flood insurance is supposed to cover. Apparently, none of these homeowners had flood insurance. They gambled that their homes would never flood. They lost that bet. Now they want someone else to cover their losses.

These homeowners want to potentially increase the village budget by 25%, so that they can get out of their existing homes and into new ones with zero financial loss? What selfishness! Taxes would have to go up for the entire rest of the village in order to accomplish this.

At least have the guts to walk through the village door by door demanding $125 from each person in the house. Because that's what you're doing here, Mr. Johnson. And if you'd be too ashamed, embarrassed, or scared to that, you should be too embarrassed and ashamed to ask for tax handouts.