Renaissance? There's a "renaissance" in the city? Is the following an indication of a success or a failure?
For WHOM is it a success and for WHOM is it a failure
Just a couple reminders first:
1. The city/co/plex took the TAXPAYERS’ money and gave it away to their millionaire political cronies to build new buildings for them or to renovate existing new buildings for them. Remember, AT THE TAXPAYERS’ EXPENSE – most of whom are financially struggling homeowners in the city— who pay the highest taxes around—common people of who live in the neighborhoods rather than downtown.
2. The the city/co/plex declares these properties “WHOLLY EXEMPT” meaning these millionaire and billionaire political cronies (of the city/co/plex) pay “PILOTs” which is a very very small percentage of the tax bill that they would pay if they did not have the PILOT. So this means the TAXPAYERS – primarily the financially struggling homeowners in the city, are paying the largest amount of the property and school taxes of these properties.
Those reminders said, now we see last Friday there was a list of TAX foreclosures, about 350, meaning at least two years of taxes has not been paid on these properties. If I remember correctly, the city must “make school district whole,” so that means when someone fails to pay the school taxes, the city must then make the payment to the school district, which then means the city is paying the taxes to the school district.
We have to sidestep here and ask, is this website a favorite place for the city officials to visit? Gee, some of us have been regularly posting here stating how the city has been ignoring STATE LAW regarding publishing tax foreclosures in the newspapers and wow, hope everyone saw that the city finally published such a list in the paper last week.
Hmmmm, obviously some of us
"nayboobs" are doing something POSITIVE for the people of the city, insuring that the people know what is happening as a result of the wild, uncontrolled spending of taxpayer money on downtown. Hey DV, care to comment????? Nah, total silence on this piece.
Looks like we--nayboobs--did something positive for the city and forced the city officials to obey state law !!!!!!!! Remember the "city" is the PEOPLE,
On those 350 properties, the city (that is, the taxpayers), now has the financial obligation to pay the upkeep of these properties, the city must mow, paint, repair broken windows, rebuild the porches, replace the house numbers, shovel sidewalks, shovel around fire-hydrants, chop the ice on sidewalks, etc.—that is assuming the McCarthy bothers to enforce the city’s laws on these new city owned properties.
Then of course there are all the expenses on the other hundreds of other city owned properties that the city took ownership in previous years because the homeowners could not afford to pay the taxes of Galesi as well as all the other super wealthy political cronies of the city/co/plex leaders.
Now just looking at the lawsuits against the city, the tax certiorari that were settled just this year alone mean the city must spend about $400,000 to refund the owners. (There will be many many many many many many more settled this year and add in all the refunds that had to be given in the many certoraris in previous years which will mean tons and tons of money that must be refunded).
Now realize that the reason for these successful suits is because McCarthy REFUSES to do a complete, citywide reassessment. Why?
Because a citywide reassessment would be proof positive that property values have MASSIVELY fallen under his leadership as well as the leadership of his buddies in the county and metroplex and his "BS" predecessor. To have a house "worth" $100,000 and paying $5,000 in taxes be reassessed, i.e., meaning really worth only $60,000 and wind up having the same $5,000 in taxes, well, really, can you imagine someone with a house worth only $60,000 having a tax bill of $5,000 a year while you could buy a house in any other city around here and probably own a $150,000 house with a tax bill of under $5,000. That doesn't look good. So what does McCarthy do? He LIES claiming there is no money to do a reassessment!!!
Then also, remember there are the OODLES AND OODLES of settled SCAR lawsuits against the city by homeowners who have the financial ability to hire attorneys or tax adjusters, or those homeowners who have the time and computer means to prepare their own grievances.
Of course, not to mention things like expenses to their cars from driving over the pothole ridden streets, the risks to their lives when emergency vehicles can't get through the streets because the mayor REFUSES to declare snow emergencies like EVERY OTHER city around here does do.
Quite the eye opening TRUTH about the MASSIVE EXPENSE to the common people of the city who are NOT getting any kind of return whatsoever on the forced investment of their money into downtown.
Perhaps the cheerleaders for the city/co/plex will actually cite some evidence that the common people--average homeowners, renters, residents--are getting a return, and explain the return?
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