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From the desk of Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia:
=&0=& Garcia questions the fairness and impact on homeowners and renters Residents raised questions and concerns about rolling assessments at a community forum sponsored by the city of Hoboken. The program, which calls for annual reassessments of a percentage of properties in town, has already received approval by City Council.The mayor claims it will save the city money in the long run.
Carmelo Garcia, the former Hoboken Housing Authority Director who saw his contract terminated last August filed a third lawsuit against the mayor, HHA and its board members claiming his termination is for ethnic reasons described as illegal and discriminatory. The story was reported earlier today by the pro Old Guard Hudson Reporter.
The first two lawsuits were filed with much media attention last year gaining national coverage when Garcia attorney Louis Zayas charged Mayor Dawn Zimmer with “ethnic cleansing” claiming her opposition to the controversial undocumented plan Vision 20/20 sought her own version with a desire to remove minority and Italian Hoboken residents.
It’s after hours so the answer to this question will have to wait but NJ.com weighed in with a story seeking answers to what lies next in Hoboken’s latest absentee boom.
Oh, sorry Timmy always corrects us when we say that; it’s Vote by Mail.
Kathryn Brenzel on NJ.com spoke to the players as a decision appears pending with Board of Elections County Clerk Michael Harper saying:
“It speaks to the integrity of the system, and the board takes allegations very seriously,” Harper said. “Sustained allegations over time raise our interest, and it’s something we’d like to see rectified. In the end, we’ll do everything we can to restore people’s faith in the vote by mail system.” So-called ballot harvesting has long been a point of contention in Hoboken. Wait did someone say ballot harvesting?Grafix Avenger may have a copyright on that vegetable. She just did a special feature on Hoboken’s Harvest Queen.
At last week’s City Council meeting, Beth Mason lamented the attacks to her dog and other “big dogs” in the neighborhood by killer possum and monster raccoons. She’s asked the mayor and the city to fund her army to tackle the onerous risks posed to Hoboken residents and its four legged friends but is deploying at once.
From the desk of interim Second Ward Councilwoman and Lt. Governor in waiting Beth Mason:
We did it! Together you and I have put together a completely effective fighting force to tackle the great risk to Hoboken residents and their pets. While the mayor has effectively failed to address the double risks of killer possum and monster raccons in our midsts, my family has bankrolled this effort to keep you and your pets safe.
Hoboken is an intense political environment. That history is captured very well in the depression era chronicle, “Killing the Poormaster” and more recently in the electoral cycles capturing eye opening revelations.
MSV in illuminating the current tide has seen its share of opposition. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show up too often in comments or emails. More often it shows up in politically abusive criminal complaints and cynical self-absorbed civil SLAPP actions. The numbers here say otherwise most recently with this past month hitting a new high of 15,000 individual users. On average, a unique user reads more than three MSV pages, including of course the landing homepage. Key data the past month: Reaching this many Hoboken readers is an obvious powerful demographic for advertisers. Contact smartyjones@me.com for more information on how to effectively reach the best audience in Hoboken.
Another tidbit to the post-election analysis, the Vote by Mail is being further analyzed with candidate totals.
Candidate Vote by Mail tallies: =&0=& 466 =&1=& 452 =&2=& 131 =&3=& 108 =&4=& 77 =&5=& 75 =&6=& 69 =&7=& 66| Winners of the Vote by Mail derby: Fran Rhodes Kearns and Peter Biancamano. |
City of Hoboken announces:
Hoboken residents are invited to a community meeting next Wednesday, November 12, 2014 to provide information and conduct a question and answer session on the reassessment process. The meeting will take place from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at the Hoboken Elks Lodge, located at 1005 Washington Street. Following last year’s revaluation, the City of Hoboken is following the best practice of conducting a “rolling reassessment” to keep property values updated on an annual basis to make sure that taxes are always distributed fairly and to prevent large disparities from occurring. Some misunderstanding has arisen among members of the public about the effect of this on Hoboken’s share of County taxes. It is important to note that the recently completed revaluation did not result in an increase in our County taxes, and the rolling reassessment that will be conducted going forward will not either. “Unfortunately, the system used to allocate Hoboken’s share of County taxes is completely unfair to Hoboken residents,” said Mayor Dawn Zimmer. “It punishes our residents for the success of our City. Every year, Hoboken’s share of County taxes goes up because Hoboken is such a desirable place to live. Whether we use the estimated value calculated with the County’s “equalization formula” or the more accurate value calculated with an actual assessment, our share of County taxes will increase because our property values are rising faster than the rest of the County. Each year, we get less value for our tax dollars because our share of County services does not increase, but our share of County taxes does. And that is just not right.” Questions & Answers on Tax Issues: Q: Did the recent revaluation result in an increase in the total amount of Municipal or School Board taxes paid by Hoboken taxpayers? A: No, it did not. The total amount of tax collected by the City and the School Board is set by the budgets of each of those entities and is based on the costs of running the City and public schools. It was unaffected by the updating of assessments. It did however, adjust the way that tax burden is distributed among taxpayers to ensure everyone pays their fair share – no more and no less. Hoboken had not done an assessment of its property values in about 25 years. As a result, the small discrepancies which occur year by year grew into large discrepancies. For the most part, the revaluation corrected those discrepancies, bringing everyone’s taxes in line with the relative fair market value of their property. The total amount of taxes raised was unchanged by the revaluation. Q: Did the recent revaluation result in an increase in the total amount of County taxes paid by Hoboken taxpayers? A: No, it did not. In fact, it resulted in over a $400,000 savings to Hoboken taxpayers compared to if the revaluation had not been conducted. The update in assessments through the revaluation resulted in a small decrease from what our County taxes would have otherwise been using the County formula. Q: Is the system used to allocate Hoboken’s share of County taxpayers unfair? A: Hoboken’s share of County taxes has been rapidly rising and will likely continue to rise because Hoboken is such a desirable place to live and our property values are increasing faster than other Hudson County towns. This was true when the “equalization formula” was used to estimate Hoboken’s aggregate property value and it will be true using the more accurate value determined by our actual assessments. Unless our share of County services increases proportionately (which it historically has not), we get less value for our County tax dollars. Mayor Zimmer has made clear to our County representatives that this imbalance must be addressed to make the system fair. Q: Why did the recently completed revaluation cause such dramatic changes in some people’s taxes? A: If everyone’s property value increased every year by the same percentage as everyone else’s, then a revaluation would not change anybody’s taxes. However, different properties appreciate at different rates. These differences are relatively small year over year, but over time small differences grow into big differences. Because 25 years elapsed between revaluations, the discrepancies and the resulting unfairness grew to be very substantial. =&4=&
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