Village 2012: Day 21

We began our day with some very nice singing. What a surprise! We sing everyday! Today's songs: the Banjo song, the Coffee Pot song, Sneeze on Me (sung to the tune of Lean on Me), and Eddie Coutcha Catcha....

Finishing the assessments

After discussing the plan of the day, we finished up the appraisal process. I am not sure which part of appraisals I like the least. What I like best about the appraisals is having the opportunity to see all of the finished, furnished homes with nice yards and fences. The finishing up this morning meant finding different types of averages for all of the house values. Homesteaders were given the packets of evaluations we filled out and added up yesterday. They took these total values and listed them in order from least to greatest on a piece of paper (or I should say 20 pieces of paper- this process was done for each homestead). Next everyone found the median assessment for the property they were working on, we did not have homesteaders do this accounting on their own properties. After median we had everyone figure the mean property values. Then we had everyone figure the average excluding the highest and lowest evaluation for each property. This was very arduous for many of us, though a necessary step in the process. When all of the figures were in, we circled up again to decide as a community which type of averaging to use. What would be the most fair for everyone? The FED gave the homesteaders five choices: mean, mean without the high and low value, median, mean of the entire town (everyone would get the same amount), or an amount selected by the FED (the same for everyone). We passed our totaled, tallied sheets around so the homesteaders would have a pretty good idea what the assessment values came back as for everyone. A lengthy discussion followed. The first concerns were that if we gave everyone the same amount, then peeps who had been lazy would be rewarded while peeps who had worked hard would not be justly compensated. In this process we learned that one peep had assessed his own property VERY high, leaving him with an unreasonably high mean (think 1000 or so times higher than everyone else). Most peeps wanted to go with the mean value because it was highest for them. What do we think of one peep in town being 1000 times richer than the rest? He will be able to out bid everyone else at the peep auction. It was suggested that we impose a tax on the assessments with the tax rate raising based on how much wealth you had. The revenue from this would go into a special mini fair fund for peeps who cannot afford to build the attraction of their dreams. It was suggested that the richest peep have to make pants for Paul and TARZAN. The richest peep was very much in favor of maintaining his almost wealth. "Do you all want lousy, little numbers just so I will be less rich?"

We voted. Homesteaders were given six choices and allowed to vote on two for the first round:

mean
mean without the highest and lowest numbers
median
taxing the assessments to level the playing field
the mean of the whole town (same emmetts for everyone)
FED imposed value (same for everyone)

The top votes were for the mean and the mean without the high and low numbers. Mean won. This process took our entire morning! Next we moved on to lunch and swimming. After lunch we went berzerk werking on mini fair business! I am not telling what, you'll have to come to the fair on Thursday to find out!