BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 14 - Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley, the Democratic Party's nominee for governor, went on the road with an anti-tax truck Thursday to point out that flip flopping on taxes is all the proof Alabama voters need to know "you can't trust Bob Riley," she said at a press conference at the Birmingham Public library.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley, at the first Blue Dot Ball in Homewood, says "you can't trust Bob Riley."

Ms. Baxley and Jefferson County Assessor Dan Weinrib both expressed their strong opposition to Governor Bob Riley’s property tax increase because of its negative effect on Alabama’s working families.

"As a candidate in 2002 Bob Riley said he would not raise our taxes, but then as soon as he got elected Riley proposed the largest tax increase in Alabama history,” Ms. Baxley said. “When the people said, 'No,' Riley had his Revenue Commissioner order annual property reappraisals, and with the stroke of a pen and without a vote of the people Riley raised our property taxes."

She pledged that her first official act as governor will be to revoke Bob Riley’s property tax increase he ordered of every revenue official in all of Alabama's 67 counties when he made the ad hoc decision to reappraise property taxes every year instead of at least once every four years, as the law calls for.

"Alabama families already pay enough taxes," she said, including new home owners in Alabama's burgeoning suburbs, where many African-American families are already stretched to the breaking point economically.

Robbie Yarbrough, chairman of the Jefferson County Democrats, joined Baxley and read the statement from Weinrib.

“Never in my wildest imagination did I ever believe that this governor would help impose the biggest property tax increases imaginable and do so without the consent of our people,” Weinrib said.

Jefferson County begins collecting taxes from property owners Monday October 2 based on the third year of annual revaluation.

"Every tax season I hear heart-wrenching stories from constituents, whose pocketbooks are already stretched thin as it is," Weinrib said. "Often they are elderly folks on fixed incomes or middle class families struggling to keep up each year with increasing house payments.”

Riley has said that it would take an act of the legislature to overturn annual property reappraisals, but the last four Alabama Governors operated under the same laws as Riley and none of them ordered annual reappraisals, Baxley said, including Gov. Fob James.

“Governor Riley could reverse the property tax increase any time he wanted to by executive order, but instead he is trying to mislead us,” Baxley said. "It just goes to show you, folks, that you just can’t trust Bob Riley."