Pushing the property tax cap
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- June
- 12
In a press conference today, Westchester County Association President Bill Mooney urged state lawmakerers to stay in session until they adopt the 4 percent property tax cap called for by Tom Suozzi’s Commission on Property Tax Relief .
If not, Mooney warned, the association would seek to make the tax cap an election issue.
“Absolutely,” Mooney said. “We are going to drive the agenda.”
To do so, the county association is planning a “consensus building campaign†that will include town hall meetings to rally public opinion. The first is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the auditorium at 800 Westchester Avenue in White Plains.
Questionnaires will be sent to members of the county’s state delegation as well as their opponents seeking their position on the tax cap.
“You see a lot of anger, you see a lot of fear out there,†Mooney said of the public reaction to the growing property tax burden.
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on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 5:11 pm by Glenn Blain.
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In this weeks Putnam County News & Recorder, Assembly Candidate William Gouldman had an open letter to Assembly woman Sandra Galef, who is the chair of the New York State Assembly Committe on Real Property Taxation. In this letter he also urged that she insists that the assembly vote on the recommendations made by the Suozzi Commission before they adjourn.
I have copied his letter below.
An Open Letter to Assemblywoman Galef
Reprinted at the Request of the Writer
Dear Mrs. Galef
Too much is at stake to allow the assembly to continue to do business as usual. In these times of economic pain the people expect more from their elected representatives. It is an affront and an act of extreme cynicism to deliberately delay the release of the report of the
New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief so that the State Assembly could let yet another year go by without bringing legislation to a vote that would cap property taxes.
Even more appalling however, was the testimony that you received on June 2nd, 2008, from the New York State Assoc. of Counties, which shockingly disclosed that people who are delinquent in paying their property taxes received tax rebate checks from the State Legislature in 2007. Counties paid an astonishing $353 million to these tax delinquents. At a time when New York is in financial duress the legislature must immediately act to fix this outrageous situation. I am calling upon you, as the Chair of the Assembly’s Committee on Real Property Taxation, to see to it that the assembly does not take its summer recess until it passes legislation that ends this irresponsible abuse. I further urge that you insist that the assembly vote on the recommendations made by the Suozzi Commission before it adjourns.
The information that has been brought to your attention places a moral and perhaps a legal imperative for the legislature to act before another cent of taxpayer money is squandered.
Sincerely,
William J. Gouldman
If enough people get behind this and make noise this bill will be law. Then we will finally have real property tax relief.
BIG ISSUE – It should be an election Issue
You go Bill Mooney people can not afford it anymore.
Bill Mooney seems like the perfect person to replace Boss Hogg as the Chairman of the BOL, or better yet, Andy himself!
John Degnan, would be rubber stamp for Sheldon Silver and the “King of Corruption” Joe Bruno is siding with the teachers unions and blocking the tax cap measure, while the Senate Democratic leader, Malcolm Smith, is not only supporting a cap but says he wants to restrict taxes even more aggressively than the governor.
Mr. Bruno yesterday joined the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, in opposing Mr. Paterson’s plan to impose a strict limit on how much districts outside New York City can raise property taxes each year.
During a press conference with Mr. Paterson, Mr. Smith, and other legislative leaders, who took a break from end-of-session negotiations to give an update on their lack of progress, Mr. Bruno criticized the governor’s bill as phony relief for homeowners and said he wouldn’t introduce it on the floor.
Instead, Mr. Bruno promoted an alternative plan that would “phase out” local property taxes by shifting billions of dollars in school costs to the state. Mr. Bruno has not said how the state would pay for it, and Assembly Democrats have refused to acknowledge its existence, let alone debate it.
Nothing will get passed. We will all be talking about this issue during the next election in 2010. Because no one has the B__’s to get together and have meaningful solutions to these major issues.