Property taxes and the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.

Chester County officials want to talk about property taxes.

The entire county is invited to attend a forum at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13, in the commissioners' boardroom on the fifth floor of the courthouse North Wing on North High Street in West Chester.

"We need the opportunity to have a conversation with the taxpayers," Commissioners' Chairwoman Carol Aichele told the West Chester Daily Local News. "The bottom line is that we cannot run Chester County in the year 2009 for the same amount of money that we did in 2008."

Translation: Property taxes are going up for county residents in 2009.

The proposed $461.4 million budget introduced by county staff last month includes a 5 percent increase in property taxes, from the current millage of 3.804 to 4.018, says reporter Michael Rellehan.

Read the full story at the newspaper's Web site.

Details of the 2009 Chester County budget are available online at www.chesco.org