The so-called dark store taxation controversy is something well known in Marquette County.

That knowledge has been hard won. It has come as the result of local units of government scaling back operations due to financial loss related to the bizarre and unfair method of taxing big-box stores employed by Michigan’s Tax Tribunal.

Thus, it came as quite a shock to those aware of the crisis to find that Gov. Rick Snyder recently reappointed to Michigan’s Tax Tribunal, Marcus Abood, an architect and proponent of the scheme to undervalue big-box stores.

The Office of the Governor of Michigan has yet to get the message that local government services are not sustainable if real estate taxes are not assessed fairly.

While it is not unusual for Lansing to fail to hear residents living in the Upper Peninsula, there has been widespread bipartisan support in Lansing to find a legislative fix to the screwball notion that a newly constructed big-box store, upon opening for business, should be taxed as if it were vacant, as if it had failed and the lights were out: as if it had gone dark!

The Marquette County Board of Commissioners was the first unit of government in Michigan to take up the cause of finding a legislative fix to a problem that looked more like fraud than a sensible and honorable way of taxing real estate. Is the allegation of fraud mere political hype? You be the judge.

Corporations who own these behemoths, upon the completion of construction of a new store, declare that it really isn’t worth what it cost to build and it certainly should not be valued based on the sales it will generate for the next forty years.

No, these national and regional stores argue that a shiny new big box store is worth very little because there is no market for its sale. Market for its sale? These stores are not for sale!

They are built to be operated and make money. In a scheme worthy of the greatest of con men, the owners themselves impose deed restrictions upon their stores, making them incapable of being sold to competitors.

They then state that their deliberate devaluing of a brand new store must be the sole basis for determining its taxable value.

This entire scheme is contrary to how property has been assessed in Michigan for decades. It’s a scheme that has been shut down in other states, where government officials know a scam when they see one.

Given this reality, we return to the governor and what his office seems not to know. Does the Office of the Governor not know that Mr. Abood was the Judge who wrote the decision in Home Depot vs. Breitung Township? In that decision Mr. Abood approved the use of sales of vacant properties as “comparable properties” to value a new Home Depot.

Those properties were not located in the Upper Peninsula and were old and abandoned. They had deed restrictions that precluded the site’s usage for the building of other big-box stores.

Mr. Abood reached a valuation for Home Depot stores of $25 per square foot which is not found anywhere in the United States. In Home Depot’s state of domicile, Georgia, the same stores have an average value of $65 per square foot. That is about the same value that is found in Wisconsin.

In Menards vs. City of Escanaba, Mr. Abood determined that even when the seller itself imposes deed restrictions to limit what can be built on the site, this does not affect marketing the property or its sales price.

Mr. Abood’s opinion is contrary to Michigan Law and the opinion of other judges and appraisers who examined the issue.

In short, Mr. Abood is not qualified to serve in this once obscure but vital position as a Judge of the Tax Tribunal.

We trust and hope that the Governor’s Office simply made a mistake based on lack of knowledge of Mr. Abood’s record. We urge Gov. Snyder to withdraw Mr. Abood’s appointment.

If that does not occur, then we urge the Senate to hold a hearing and deny consent to the appointment of Mr. Abood.

At the point where a hard-earned legislative fix may be on the horizon, the last thing the state of Michigan needs is to add to the irreparable harm that has already been caused by Mr. Abood.

Editor’s note: Gerald Corkin is chairman of the Marquette County Board of Commissioners.