AVCOG loses again.

Auburn’s Board of Assessment Review rejected a tax appeal by the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments Wednesday night.

It was the right decision, and once again affirms the organization’s obligation to pay property taxes to the city.

AVCOG has never paid taxes on its property in Auburn. Beginning in 1997, the city assessed the taxes, but then waived them.

Last year, Councilor Bob Mennealy questioned the practice. The city’s assessor and lawyer agreed that AVCOG was not exempt and the organization was sent a tax bill for about $25,000.

So far, it hasn’t paid and the city has been reluctant to force the issue.

With support from some members of city government and staff, AVCOG appealed the tax decision and lost. Now, the taxes should be paid and the organization should consider itself lucky.

As was made clear during Wednesday’s hearing, AVCOG can appeal again, this time to Superior Court. Certainly, that’s the organization’s right.

But if the matter is pursued further, the city also should seek the taxes that were illegitimately waived beginning in 1997. Already, this matter has placed a financial burden on the city. Further legal action would compound those costs.

AVCOG has owed taxes every year since 1997. It caught a break for many years, but that run of good luck is over.

Blaming the messenger

During a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee this week, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz blamed journalists working in Iraq for some of the troubles there.

“Frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors,” he said.

Frankly, the problem in Iraq is that Wolfowitz and his superiors in the Pentagon and White House did not correctly anticipate how Iraqis would react to an occupation.

Daily reports of assassinations, bombings, kidnappings and chaos are not rumors. And they cannot be blamed on the media, either.

Journalists are not heroes. They are in Iraq voluntarily, even if at great personal risk. The danger they face is nothing compared to the threat of the men and women in the military, who, by the nature of their dress and jobs, are automatically targets.

Nonetheless, at least 30 journalists have been killed covering the war, some of those by U.S. fire, and members of the media are under constant threat.

In May, two Japanese journalists were killed, and John Burns, bureau chief for the New York Times, and several people he works with were kidnapped and held for several hours. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The journalists covering Iraq seek the truth. Sometimes they are more successful than others.

It’s the facts about the insecurity and violence in Iraq that should bother Wolfowitz, not his press clippings

Coordinated attacks in five Iraqi cities Thursday left more than 85 dead and more than 300 injured. That’s no rumor.