By the time I got this morning's CLIPS posted, showered and dressed, it was about 8:20 when I arrived for the 8:00 am Chamber of Commerce legislative breakfast.
You gotta give it to Donna Albanese, Sal Dovi, Tracey Robinson and the Chamber members: when the notice says 8:00 am, it means 8:00 am. There were about 50 people who had already gotten there, gottten a bite of breakfast, and were seated listening to the first speaker. Refreshing!
Council President Ray Blanco was wrapping up his remarks, saying "I feel more hopeful [about Plainfield--DD] than at any time in the last thirty years..." He also chided the media, and the Courier by name, saying he has had conversations with the editors where he said, "Sorry, you don't cover us enough. . .Sorry, what will it take for you to cover us more. . .I remember when we had three or four stories a week. . ."
There are a lot of reasons we don't get more coverage, and they all have to do with seismic changes in the business of news -- a topic I'll tackle some other time. One hopeful sign is that the Council President said the Council is considering publishing a newsletter. That would be a good thing.
After taking a few questions and comments from the floor -- Jeff Dunn urged that small businesses utilize the resources that are available here in the community and Ron Scott Bey reaffirmed the commitment of the Plainfield Health Center to "remove barriers to health care" -- Council President Blanco closed with some observations about the burden of property taxes.
Noting that he had campaigned door-to-door throughout the city in his run for a Council seat, the Council President said, "When you see how many Seniors have to sell their houses because of taxes -- Seniors pay fifty percent of our taxes -- it breaks your heart. . ." It does indeed.
The Council President was followed by a representative from Congressman Mike Ferguson's office, who quickly noted that Plainfield is actually represented by Congressman Frank Pallone, but that he was glad to give an overview of current issues Congress was focusing on.
It was pretty general stuff and I noted several people around the room dozing and nodding off [you know who you are, no names will be mentioned -- Dan is the soul of discretion!]. Until he finally got to some questions. Health care quickly came up -- remember, this was mostly people with small businesses and health care costs are a very painful issue.
Ferguson's man dodged fairly well until Vicki Griswold of the Plainfield Music Store lobbed a grenade directly into his foxhole: "Does Congressman Ferguson oppose or support universal health care?" He waffled his way to a quick wrap. . .practically tap-dancing to the finish. It is a vexing issue.
Intrigued by Council President Blanco's remark that Seniors pay half of Plainfield's property taxes, I wandered by City Hall to do a little fact-checking.Note to grammar monitors: Showering and dressing the morning's CLIPS just seemed the right thing to do.
The 2000 Census considers there are 47,829 residents in the city, with the split between owners and renters being 50.1% to 49.9%. It also considers that there are 2,660 individuals 65 years and older living in the city. If you figure that half those live in rental units [and I have no reason to assume the figures break down otherwise] and do not pay property taxes, that means there is a pool of about 1,330 possible taxpaying Senior households. That would be a little less than 12%.
Checking the Assessor's records, I found that the County's tax records consider that there are 9,114 taxable residential properties in the city. There are 410 listed as Seniors qualifying for income-based reductions. Because an income threshold is involved, there are obviously more Senior property owners than this. Twice as many? Three times? In any event, there seems no way the figure can be more than about 12%.
-- Dan Damon
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1 comment:
Two comments: 1) The media has covered Plainfield fairly well recently given the fact that city hall doesn't even let the residents know what's going on. There was no notice of the mayor speaking at the Day of Prayer and our last communication from the mayor arrived in our garbage cans. What is it that Councilman Blanco want the media to cover? What has the council been doing that deserves coverage by the media? Are they kissing babies and blessing puppies? The papers don't "owe" Plainfield coverage. Come on! Why can't the council web page on the city's web site let residents know what is going on? A good place to start would be to have the council meeting schedule placed on the web site. Right now it says that the agenda meetings and business meetings all take place on first and third Mondays, which is not true. The public access station is another way of getting information to the residents who pay for it: another dead end since it hasn't been updated since February. As far as property taxes, you make a good point, Dan. What's the point of inflating the percentage of seniors from your number, approximately 12%, to Councilman Blanco's frankly unbelievable 50% figure? Even if it's 15% or 20%, his exaggeration is unhelpful. Making up a number out of thin air may be dramatic, but it's also insulting to the intelligence of Plainfield residents. Mr. Blanco prides himself on all the research he does, why didn't he research this to get a more accurate number? What is the council going to be able to do to help with property taxes? Realistically speaking, nothing. They increased our budget this year and next year it will increase even more. It is devoutly to be wished that this council would be able to do what the county and state have not been able to, but with the Abbott funding in jeopardy, no one really believes that this council can do anything about taxes. One thing they can and should do is be watchdogs of the administration and make sure that no money is wasted. They should be forcing the administration to be accountable to the people and at least answer the phone. They should make employee salaries which are public records AVAILABLE to the public so that WE can see OUR tax dollars at work. As far as a Council newsletter, I don't want my taxes going to creating written fluff on council accomplishments, especially during election time (like the county does for its freeholders), when these things are usually just thinly disguised campaign pieces. You are usually in the know Dan. What is going on at the city council meetings?
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