There is spin, and then there is spin.

[Tod]

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/...es-automapping

Richland Co. auditor announces automapping
County to photograph properties for first time in 11 years

MANSFIELD — Richland County isn’t spying on you.

The auditor’s office has contracted with a Dayton firm to photograph 53,000 property parcels in the county for the first time since 2002.
The photographs, which are required by the state, will be taken from a big, white van starting today. The company hired for the job, Tyler Technologies, plans to begin its picture-taking in Mansfield. Over the next two to three months it will cover every corner of the county, photographically speaking. A second van is expected to arrive here in a couple of weeks to assist in the task.
There are about 75,000 property parcels in Richland County, 53,000 of which support either residential or commercial structures.
The 12-megapixel photographs will be used for tax evaluation and reappraisal, 9-1-1 and other emergency services and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) mapping. The photos will also be available to the public.
“People can call us with any questions they might have. We’ll be extremely friendly, and answer them as many times as we have to,” Richland County Auditor Patrick Dropsey said.
For information about the imaging project, call the auditor’s office at 419-774-5501.
Curtis Tyler, a senior project manager with Tyler Technologies, said no photographs will be taken of people on their property, and that workers will come back later if they have to.
“We will respect their privacy at all times,” he said. “We don’t usually experience any adverse reactions.”
Photos will be taken from public rights of way, but workers have been authorized to access driveways or private lanes if they need to.
Workers will be wearing identification badges, and the van, a Ford E150, has signs on it explaining its purpose, along with a flashing light on the roof. The county sheriff’s department will be notified of where the vans are each day.
The imaging project is costing the county $140,450, which is coming out of real estate assessments. Dropsey said the spring months were chosen for the project because, while the weather is improving, there’s no foliage yet on the trees.

I live in a neighboring county, but if I lived here and were wealthy, it would be very tempting to set up some sort of lighting system that would cause their cameras to over-expose, ruining their pic. Or build a tall fence around the property so they couldn't see anything.

[Tod]

I added the following comment after the article:

Just think if John Q. Public drove around photographing everyone's properties and then sending out bills for services that you may or may not actually use or want, and then if you didn't pay the bill, he confiscated your property and sold it to someone else. We would all say that John is nothing more than a shakedown artist; a mobster. But somehow, if we collectively do the same thing to each other, it is considered "okay"?

If a landowner is forced to continually pay taxes, can we really say that the "landowner" ACTUALLY owns the land? Isn't he basically just a renter?