 Santa knows where to find all the best and hottest smartphones just in time to make this Christmas better and bigger than ever. Better service, bigger savings, that's today's Appalachian Wireless! Ho, ho, ho! The scene at Tuesday's Pike County Fiscal Court meeting was much the same as the last as residents expressed their comments and concerns over many issues, including the most recent issue of the significant increase in property taxes. I've been fighting this bunch for years. They keep on just spending money, spending money, and they expect the taxpayers to just pay more taxes, more taxes, so they can go out and cater to their political base. They've got their buddies that they'll cater to and they don't care who pays for it. These kids out there, they get their food at school and they got nothing to eat and these people out there without electricity, they're all losing their job now because the people saying they couldn't beat them, they got too much political power. The only way to get rid of them was change the form of government and I worked my hind end off to get enough signatures to get that done. During the last Pike County Fiscal Court meeting, members of the court placed much of the blame on Frankfurt, saying they were not notified of the changes in how oil, gas and un mined coal taxes are assessed. Officials in Frankfurt told EKB News that was not the case, but county officials maintained they were not notified. We weren't notified about the reassessment of the mineral. We were notified, we either take the compensation rate or raise rates and that's why we had to take the compensating rate even though they had taken away $400 million worth of our tax base. If Pike County had not taken the compensated rate, the damage to the county would have been great. Pike County would have lost about $400,000 and the school board would have lost I think over $2 million and close to $3 million. Deskins went on to say that the solution to the problem is still in the hands of officials in Frankfurt. Reporting from Pikeville, I'm Sean Allen for EKB News.