| Author |
Message |
    
Rheims
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 1:17 pm: |     |
When the Founding Fathers published white-hot opinion pieces in order to drive to action their fellow colonists and, later, their new countrymen, they used psuedonyms to protect themselves. For this reason I find Fairtax a fascinating, if bullying and obnoxious persona. It seems the Web has brought a once cherished form of discourse, the anonymous attack, back to the fore.
But we are no longer ruled by a monarchy. We no longer have sedition laws. We can go into Town Hall and on TV, give our names and speak our minds without fear of reprisal. I ask you, has anyone's appraisal gone UP because they complained?
So why does Fairtax aka Citizen hide behind these names? Why doesn't s/he come out and challenge the TC in the open and also confront all those s/he claims to speak for, but doesn't? Why doesn't s/he reveal how many people belong to this "Maplewood Fair Taxation Committee" rather than couch their numbers in euphamism? Why doesn't this group declare themselves as a public force rather than a secret society?
Fairtax, I don't question your right to organize other citizens and demand what you believe is right. In fact, I applaud it, whether I agree with your goals. Every town needs rabblerousers because the rabble sometimes needs rousing, the government questioning. It's a brave role.
But if you claim to speak for me and others as if you were our elected representative, even by implication, I want to know who you are. Reveal yourself. Stop riding by night. |
Overtaxdalready
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 2:03 pm: | |
The members of Fairtax made individual presentations at the 1/16 town hall meeting. No one is hiding behind any names. They've mentioned their names in various emails that have been distributed to individuals on their mailing list. They are not the cloak-and-dagger outfit you're making them out to be. And yes, at the 1/23 town hall meeting an individual spoke and said that after he complained to Certified about his valuation, he got a new valuation that was HIGHER than the first one. |
Flugermongers
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 2:37 pm: | |
I'm on the FairTax e-mail list and they sign with their full names. Also they introduced themselves with names and addresses at the Township Committee meeting, plus they've given me personal replies with phone numbers to reach them at home. |
Rheims
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 3:28 pm: | |
OTA and FM
1. I know that individual members have identified themselves publically as part of the MFTC, but has Citizen him/herself? I addressing was addressing him/her specifically, not synecdochically. Sorry for the confusion.
2. Was the person's re-revaluation higher because he complained or because his property warrented it? If the former, why would he be singled out? I would think the latter is the case. If the CV can miss on the high side, they may have aimed too low a few times as well. |
Mfpark
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 4:49 pm: | |
Rheims:
I believe that Citizen is a "handle" that represents a group-write of the last Fair Tax letter to the TC. I understand that the letter was the result of the work of several people, so they used a group username. In the interest of self-disclosure, I am not a member of the group that wrote the letter, and I do not agree with all of it, by the way.
I agree with the other comments that have found the most active/vocal Fair Tax folks to be more than forthcoming with their names, phone numbers, and personal time to answer questions and share information (as have Jerry and Vic). I appreciate what I have learned from all of these sources.
By the way, I doubt that you mean, at the end of your last posting, that the theory of countervaling errors makes it okay to overassess one party so long as another was underassessed--right?
Of course people who feel they are underassessed will keep quiet, and those overassessed will squeal the loudest. That is not nefarious--it is human nature. But it does not make their efforts to understand the process any less valid.
Finally, "synecdochically"--damn fine word! It is probably the best thing I have learned from this whole debate (seriously, no irony intended). |
Rheims
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 4:56 pm: | |
Mfpark
Re underassessement: yes, what I meant was not that re-revaluations should go up because others go down, but that just as some assessments were mistakenly high for one reason or the other, it's conceivable that an assessment could have been low by mistake--and this was brought to CV's attentions by mistake. For example, say CV somehow missed the back porch and third bathroom, but the owner didn't realize this when he went in to complain.
Re word: thanks. One of my favorites. |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 5:11 pm: | |
synecdochically - looks and sounds great. But what does it mean???  I love discovering new words, so please, tell me, tell me!
Thanks
Bacata |
Rheims
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 5:16 pm: | |
the part for the whole or the whole for the part
the crown for the king, the king for the country, and vice versa |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 6:14 pm: | |
Thanks. Now, I'll have to find a way to use it soon to burn it into my memory. Interesting that it works in both directions. I guess that's the "syn" part.
Bacata |
Maggie
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:19 pm: | |
Overtaxd, Rheims, Mfpark, et al.
To set the record straight, my husband and I comprise the party of dubious distinction, currently in possession of the assessment that was raised after meeting with Certified. And to clarify, we didn't go into that meeting complaining. Rather, as advised, we went to make sure that the ratables were correctly recorded (as indeed they seemed to be) and to apprise the company rep that our research on comparable sales (including our mid-1999 purchase price) did not appear to validate the assessment as presented. While we did not necessarily expect to receive a reduction, we definitely did not expect the appreciable increase via the revision letter.
At this point, we believe Certified made an error, one that can be rectified by Mr. Galante's office. We have prepared our presentation to that office and expect a positive outcome.
This is not to say that we aren't angry that so much time, effort, and angst had to be expended on our part to research, document, and prepare for the review. |
Rheims
| | Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001 - 12:46 pm: | |
Maggie: Good luck with Galante. I would be tearing my hair out at this point.
Et al.: This business of the word out of the way, I'd like to return to the issue at hand: Why doesn't the Fairtax leadership sign their names here, such as on the letter they posted yesterday? Are we not as important as the paper they sent it to, whom they did supply with real names? What is their command structure? Is JL Nathenson behind it all? |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001 - 1:10 pm: | |
I agree. Since any of the fairtax individuals can post here under other handles, they can still remain anonymous when the reval issue is all said and done.
In the meantime, it would give some legitimacy to the cause if real names were given, rather than hiding behind some screen name. |
Flugermongers
| | Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001 - 4:46 pm: | |
Njjoseph and Rheims - So far I've seen Fairtax give their "real" names at the Township Committee meeting, on their e-mail list, in the NYTimes, The Star ledger and ABC News (Ch.7)...
They're an ad hoc group that's existed for all of 2 months! Lighten up! They may be less polished than you're used to, but that's a grassroots organization as opposed to a well-oiled political machine. If it wasn't for their efforts I'll bet none of us would have known about the implications of the reval until it was too late to do anything. The Township Committee didn't offer any info about the reval until Fairtax organized and started asking questions in public. |
Antrim
| | Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001 - 5:33 pm: | |
'Fairtax' represents, (last figures I heard of about 500 families) their names were given many times at all the meetings and they are speaking on behalf of all those people. There has never been any secrecy as to who they are. |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001 - 6:03 pm: | |
>>If it wasn't for their efforts I'll bet none of us would have known about the implications of the reval until it was too late to do anything. The Township Committee didn't offer any info about the reval until Fairtax organized and started asking questions in public.
I'm at a loss for words at this statement. It's so blind to efforts of the TC, especially Jerry Ryan, to give information to people, that I don't know where to begin. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001 - 9:20 pm: | |
But it's true. Fairtax organized after the Jan. 2 meeting to get the word out about what the actual taxes were going to be based on the recently received assessment letter. They did this because there was basically no positive reaction from the TC after that meeting regarding the astoundingly high assessments. If you recall, the deadline was originally Jan 10. This date did get changed but if not for Fairtax's grassroots efforts going door to door with fliers alerting people to what was about to happen, the reval would have gone through as it was. Since then, of course, and after all the public outcry, yes, the TC has been doing quite alot, this can not be denied. |
Tracks
| | Posted on Friday, February 2, 2001 - 10:13 am: | |
I may not agree with Jerry Ryan or how he always does everything, but I think it is unfair to say he has not always been available to answer questions. He has been responding to questions on this board and gave information as soon as Certified had given it to the village.
A lot of the questions that "fairtax" has been asking for the past month or two were answered when the process started. Just way back then nobody cared until they found out they might be getting a significant increase in taxes. True Monday morning quarterbacks.
Despite all the screaming it appears that Certified's numbers are in line with the real values, which is not to say that there were not any mistakes made, just not enough to redo the reval. Everyone who does not like there new assesment can appeal. |
Yvette
| | Posted on Friday, February 2, 2001 - 11:29 am: | |
If it weren't for Fairtax leaving flyers at the train station I would not have known about the tax situation and I thank them for that.
However, the impression I received was that everybody's taxes were going up substantially and we had to reject and redo the revaluations.
But now we know, this was just not true!
So no (in the beginning) the TC didn't give much info nor did Fairtax. |
Flugermongers
| | Posted on Friday, February 2, 2001 - 12:46 pm: | |
Yvette - don't you think that the TC had the responsibilty to give out the info and not Fairtax? I got the impression from their flier that a lot of taxes were going up substantially, and not all. I guess if one portion of town is really overassessed than all portions of town end up paying the incorrect property taxes. |
Rheims
| | Posted on Friday, February 2, 2001 - 12:47 pm: | |
And Yvette's point makes mine perfectly: the anonymity of Fairtax makes it/them dangerous.
Yes people have identified themselves as part of the group, but no one has identified themselves as its leader or leaders, even who first organized the group or answers their e-mail initially.
No one has made themselves personally accountable for their attacks, for their misrepresentation of the facts, and for their conclusions.
They can identify themselves by name on their e-mail list all they want. It's an internal list. I would like to know who they are. Here. By position. Perhaps they are ad-hoc but certainly they must have individual responsibilities--who printed up their fliers, for example?--otherwise they would be unorganized, ineffective and useless.
Here OTA, FM and Ant have defended Fairtax, but haven't provided the names. On another e-mail JL Nathenson has taken "Townie" to task, calling him a coward, for not revealing his name while asking that Fairtax come clean on who they are. Well, "Townie" isn't claiming to represent anyone but himself. Fairtax is, by implication.
So again I ask: who are the Fairtax leaders? |
|