| Author | Message | ||
     Lseltzer |
http://www.nj.com/njcommunities/ledger/essex/index.ssf?/njcommunities/ledger/essex/1295792.html Maplewood tax increase would be phased in 03/09/01 BY TOM HESTER STAR-LEDGER STAFF The Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee approved legislation yesterday designed to allow Maplewood to phase in tax increases after the township's first property revaluation in 20 years. ... | ||
| Melidere |
funny, there's no mention of how anyone plans to fund this. | ||
| Dytunck |
Mel, You know very well how. lol | ||
| Melidere |
yea wait till mtierney figures out this will come out of HER pocket. ok, players. everyone switch teams. | ||
| Vicdeluca |
The headline is misleading. This is enabling legistlation, meaning that it gives the local government the power to enact this law. It does not actually phase in the revaluation nor require that a phase in be used. The legislation still has to pass the full Senate. It also has to be introduced in the Assembly and heard by the appropriate committee. Then it gets reported out to the full Assembly for a vote. Assemblyman Stanley has agreed to consider the bill but has heard of concerns from South Orange. The Township Committee is arranging a meeting with South Orange to discuss their concerns. Assuming that the law passes both houses and is signed by the acting governor, it becomes a question for the Township Committee. When it was discussed at a previous TC meeting, it was stated that an analysis of the phase in was required before agreeing to implementing this option. This is still the case. We will have to look at the numbers to better understand its impact. We will be running various models of a phase in to get that information. Just for the record, the total assessed value is now $2,047,175,600. | ||
| Njjoseph |
Sorry, I just don't get it. Those expecting reductions will wait a few years for the full benefit. And what about those of us whose taxes are going up, but don't meet the threshold? No phase-in for us? Shouldn't EVERYONE in Maplewood have the phase-in? If not, there are definitely houses whose assessments should require them to pay higher taxes than I do, but with the phase-in, that may not happen for 2 or 3 more years. Another example of inequity in property taxes. | ||
| Townie |
Thanks for doing the rest of the paper's job, Vic. I understanding now this may be the last we ever hear of it, but if it manages to keep going forward, when is the earliest date you can forsee it reaching DiFrancesco's desk? kathleen | ||
| Njjoseph |
Thanks for your posting, Vic. Yours and mine crossed. I am confident you and the rest of the TC will review carefully and make the right decisions. | ||
| Townie |
Melidere, I realize you were being facetious, but I'm not sure everyone will switch teams. I think I feel the same way now as I did then, which is that this is not a good idea, and I'm one of those whose taxes would be phased-in. I saw Lydia Lacey in the article saying she foresaw problems with the bill of the sort Njjoseph talks about. | ||
| Dytunck |
Vic, Thanks for the explanation. You were kind to the NS-L reporter. It wasn't just the headline that was misleading, but the byline and the text of the article were as well. It's these PR-placed sound bytes that I find offensive. Was this supposed to be a bone to throw to the "westies?" Keep the rabble-rousers quiet? The wording was just a little too clever, as Mel pointed out. Thanks, Larry, for finding and posting the article. | ||
| Njjoseph |
Dytunck, I reread the article, and I'm with you: it really does sound like the phase-in is a done deal, and it's up to the township to decide timeframes and percentages. Anyone reading the article should be expecting a phase-in. | ||
| Melidere |
Townie, i was completely being facetious. and yes, i did notice that lydia was balanced in her response. i appreciated that, actually. | ||
| Johnjdel |
I don't find anything misleading here. The headline says "Would be," not "will be" or "should be." The article goes on to say that "The measure, which now goes to the full Senate, would authorize Maplewood officials to approve an ordinance to phase in tax increases over a number of years." Anything misleading here? Finally, it ends with, "The phase-in proposal could receive consideration when the Senate next convenes on March 26." Where's the conspiracy? Is it a vast, right-wing thing? And with all due respect, and I mean that, I am hesitant to blindly hand my fate once again to the closed-door TC, trusting them to "review carefully and do the right thing." This whole process was flawed from the get-go in one major aspect: lack of citizen input. | ||
| Townie |
Dytunck, As one who has worked in journalism, may I suggest you're almost giving too much credit here for thought? You are certainly right that this was a PR handout. Amazing that the reporter called Lydia Lacey! (If it were the News-Record, we wouldn't have gotten even that much legwork). But the editorial thought process probably wasn't anymore complex than: Rice PR person calls editor, editor tells reporter to call back, reporter takes dictation, somebody decides to get "other side" and calls Lacey, story is edited into perfect confusion by editors who know only that Maplewood reval is newsworthy (but not why) and headline writer guesses at story meaning and puts on wrong headline. And that's the way it is. | ||
| Bix |
Maybe we should change the name to Maple"would". B|X | ||
| Townie |
Johnjdel, How about if I sent you a notice saying: "Your taxes would be $18,548 after the new rate is set." But of course I forgot to mention that's only if X, Y and Z happened, which are by no means certain to happen. The headline should have been: Tax Phase-in for Maplewood Moves One Step Forward | ||
| Townie |
Melidere, I appreciated it to, but had I been reporting the story, I would have asked if it was still the position of Fairtax that it wanted the reval thrown out (in lieu of any phase-in). I've recently been wondering if Fairtax still existed and, if so, what was its purpose. kathleen | ||
| Johnjdel |
I'm thinking (seriously), I might be missing something. Is there more in the actual paper article than there is in the online-edition? Town, I'll give you this: the Ledger reporters hit this story exactly for the reasons you said: They think its important, but have no idea why. You'll notice that every article re: The Reval has been written by a different reporter, and this latest author is actually in the Ledger's South Jersey Bureau (the '609' area code gives it away). I'll agree, yet again (ouch..), that the News Record does a pitiful job of researching its stories, and makes an enire newspaper out of a pile of press releases and one person's notes at the TC meeting. | ||
| Njjoseph |
Johnjdel, I read the on-line version, and did find it misleading. Although the journalist's words use the words "would" and "could," Mr. Rice's uses "will." Not understanding completely the steps to approve this legislation, I had to read the article twice to understand all the subtleties. I was thinking of calling the reporter to ask him to clarify the story. | ||
| Townie |
Johnjdel, The Star-Ledger thinks this story is important because it sells newspapers! If I find the article in my print edition, I'll see if it has the added context Vic supplied or anything close to it. I thought of an even shorter headline: Maplewood Tax Phase-in Advances (but adding "in Trenton" would be better) |
