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Property Taxes Going Through The Roof


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According to the new budget introduced yesterday, taxes will be going through the roof even though the town is borrowing $500,000 to pay for current expenses and not capital projects otherwise they would have gone up even higher.

The Mayor blames the state of course and the Board of Education. It is not his fault he can only take credit for everyone else's projects but not take the blame for raising the taxes.

Save your money you are going to need it come February.

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Guest Guest 99

Then show up on the 16th with your solutions. At last nights meeting it was said taxes will be going up about $30-$35/quarter. Not through the roof. And, no one on the council or the audience challenged.

PS.... The budget was not introduced last night. An amendment was.

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Then show up on the 16th with your solutions. At last nights meeting it was said taxes will be going up about $30-$35/quarter. Not through the roof. And, no one on the council or the audience challenged.

PS.... The budget was not introduced last night. An amendment was.

Sorry to disagree, but I did challenge the budget ammendment and I voted against it. And, I would urge every citizen of Kearny to learn as much as they can about this budget before the final vote on Tues Dec 16.

As I said last Tuesday, a budget is policy document. And it has been the policy of the Santos administration to continuously borrow money by bonding for as much future debt as possible. Last year Santos pushed for a 15 year bond ordinance for 4 year old water meters with an average life of less than 10 years. That means we'll be making interest payments in the year 2016 for meters that won't make it to 2008! And what does that cost taxpayers? Almost $600,000 in interest payments for water meters that were already paid for!

Now Mayor Santos wants to apply the same logic to everyday expenses. This budget takes $430,000 of regular annual expenses out of the budget because we are now going to bond to pay for them. That means another 10-15 years of interest payments for items like station wear (uniforms) for the Fire Dept, firearms for the Police Dept, and computer software for the Construction Code Dept. Is it me, or is it crazy to be making payments for the next 10-15 years for items that won't last more than a few years? Why should our children have to pay for what we are using today? Why should we have to go out and hire a bond attorney to draw up all the necessary legal papers for items like tools for our firefighters? THIS IS INSANE!

You know yourself. In your house if money is tight you do away with luxuries and you hold the line on neccesities. But, you wouldn't take out a bank loan to pay for your clothes, would you? Yet, that's exactly what this budget does! This year's budget already shows an increase of $4,000,000 in our debt service over last year. When will it end?

Stop the Santos administriation's credit card mentality! Voice your opinion at the puiblic hearing on the budget Tues Dec 16 at 6pm!

Abraham Lincoln once said, "Just as an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from—so must it be with a government."

Smart man, that Lincoln.

Councilman Jim Mangin

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Guest Guest 99

Mr. Mangin, aren't you part of the finance committee that presented this budget to the council?

And, wasn't it said at the council meeting that you never ask these questions at the finance meetings?

Same ol' grandstanding, huh?

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Hey Jim,

What would Abe have to say about the firemans contract not being settled for almost 4 COMPLETE years?

Or the fact that soon the Police are going to be without a contract?

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Mr. Mangin, aren't you part of the finance committee that presented this budget to the council?

And, wasn't it said at the council meeting that you never ask these questions at the finance meetings?

Same ol' grandstanding, huh?

Sounds like RonD kissing King Santos' butt.

Ron D should practice saying "Yes, Mayor. Yes, Your Highness." so that King Santos can select him to run against that annoying Councilman Mangin who is asking too many questions.

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To Just Another Unregistered Guest,

Yeah, that was me. NOT!! Unlike you, I will always log in to state my views.

Now, to the topic at hand. As I've always said, people should not be looking at the buget now. If they were really concerned about taxes and the town in general, they would be involved and attending meetings on a regular basis. They would then have the knowledge to ask the questions rather than asking a council member what to question. I started going to town council meetings about twelve years ago and still make as many as I can. I do this because I want to be informed and care about my community. If you opt to not believe me, too bad.

In reference to your statement about my running in next years election, I don't think any Democrat or Republican would nominate a registered Independent, which I am, for any elected office. I made that choice many years ago and will always stick with it. If I choose to run, and I'm not say anything at this time, it would be as a true Independent.

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Mr. Mangin, aren't you part of the finance committee that presented this budget to the council?

And, wasn't it said at the council meeting that you never ask these questions at the finance meetings?

Same ol' grandstanding, huh?

What Councilwoman Doyle said at last Tues' meeting was that I ask a lot of questions. I'll admit it. I'm guilty. I then replied that those questions lead to even more questions. But here's one question for you - Do you feel it is good policy for the Town to borrow money to meet current expenses, like uniforms? As I said Tuesday, this is a policy question for the Town Council. I have disagreed with this policy in the past. I disagree with it now. And I will disagree with it in the future.

It's interesting to note that nothing was said about our last Finance Committee meeting regarding the potential budget cuts I raised which would make the Mayor's bond gimmick unnecessary. No other Town Council member offerred any budget cuts whatsoever.

My suggestions:

- a cut of $8,000 for computer maintenance in the Fire Dept. since the entire system is covered by the same expenditure in the Police Dept.

- cutting $14,000 for our Bond Counsel and Bond Sale Disbursing Agent

- cutting $30,000 in Finance Consultants by keeping the current contract with our grantsperson, but eliminating all the rest.

- cutting $8,000 from the Human Services account for the position of Overseer of the Poor which has been remained unexpended for a number of years

- cutting $7,500 for our Meals on Wheels program since this entire project is already funded in another account (we only cut $5,000)

- cutting $10,000 from our Nutritional Program since we end every year with at least $10,000 left over (we only cut $5,000)

- cutting $5,000 from the Communications account for beepers for Town Council members

- cutting $10,000 by eliminating the Town website for one year (when was the last time it was updated?)

- cutting $18,000 from UEZ Legal expenses since we over-appropriated last year's account by $18,000.

- cutting $150,000 from the Water Dept account for Outside Services. Last year we budgeted $150,000 but only spent $99,000. This year we budgeted $250,000. Why?

- cutting $132,000 from the North Jersey Water District account because we overpaid the first quarter of 2001 when East Orange was still responsible for this expenditure (re-taking our Water Dept has proven to be very expensive).

That's my opinion of this issue. What's yours?

Councilman Jim Mangin

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Hey Jim,

What would Abe have to say about the firemans contract not being settled for almost 4 COMPLETE years?

Or the fact that soon the Police are going to be without a contract?

I think Honest Abe already heard about this situation in Kearny. Historians believe this is when he coined the expression - "You can fool some of the people some of the time. And you can fool some of the people all of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Smart man that Lincoln.

Councilman Jim Mangin

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- cutting $5,000 from the Communications account for beepers for Town Council members

-

$5000.00 for Beepers per year for NINE People??? What the heck kind of beepers are you folks using??? Even nationwide paging should cost almost $1000.00 less for nine people (Im including the mayor), NOT that that would be needed.

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Mr. Mangin, aren't you part of the finance committee that presented this budget to the council?

And, wasn't it said at the council meeting that you never ask these questions at the finance meetings?

Same ol' grandstanding, huh?

What Councilwoman Doyle said at last Tues' meeting was that I ask a lot of questions. I'll admit it. I'm guilty. I then replied that those questions lead to even more questions. But here's one question for you - Do you feel it is good policy for the Town to borrow money to meet current expenses, like uniforms? As I said Tuesday, this is a policy question for the Town Council. I have disagreed with this policy in the past. I disagree with it now. And I will disagree with it in the future.

It's interesting to note that nothing was said about our last Finance Committee meeting regarding the potential budget cuts I raised which would make the Mayor's bond gimmick unnecessary. No other Town Council member offerred any budget cuts whatsoever.

My suggestions:

- a cut of $8,000 for computer maintenance in the Fire Dept. since the entire system is covered by the same expenditure in the Police Dept.

- cutting $14,000 for our Bond Counsel and Bond Sale Disbursing Agent

- cutting $30,000 in Finance Consultants by keeping the current contract with our grantsperson, but eliminating all the rest.

- cutting $8,000 from the Human Services account for the position of Overseer of the Poor which has been remained unexpended for a number of years

- cutting $7,500 for our Meals on Wheels program since this entire project is already funded in another account (we only cut $5,000)

- cutting $10,000 from our Nutritional Program since we end every year with at least $10,000 left over (we only cut $5,000)

- cutting $5,000 from the Communications account for beepers for Town Council members

- cutting $10,000 by eliminating the Town website for one year (when was the last time it was updated?)

- cutting $18,000 from UEZ Legal expenses since we over-appropriated last year's account by $18,000.

- cutting $150,000 from the Water Dept account for Outside Services. Last year we budgeted $150,000 but only spent $99,000. This year we budgeted $250,000. Why?

- cutting $132,000 from the North Jersey Water District account because we overpaid the first quarter of 2001 when East Orange was still responsible for this expenditure (re-taking our Water Dept has proven to be very expensive).

That's my opinion of this issue. What's yours?

Councilman Jim Mangin

Councilman Mangin:

I'll manage and update the Kearny Official Website for $2500 a year and still make a nice profit.

KOTW

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Guest Guest 1
Donate to the mayor's campaign fund and the job's yours.

Guest,

If I donate to the Mayor's campaign fund then the price is $5,000 per year. It's still less than the $10,000 currently being charged.

KOTW

Does anyone know who handles the Kearny website and is paid the $10,000?

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Guest Guest 1
Ray built the sight, but he does not do any updates or work on it DARCO does.

There seems to be confusion as to who is paid the $10,000. Is it Ray or D'Arco?

Councilman Mangin: Since your the only elected official whoever gives out any info, do you know if and who gets $10,000 a year for the website. If it's D'Arco, is this in addition to his regular salary and other perks?

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Guest playball

There could be 10 grand in the budget, but that doesn't mean it has to be spent. Mirrors and glass my man. Ray may have built the site but that doesn't mean he maintains it. Somewhere down the road they might want to update it. So the money is in place. Right. The town does not even have a network admin, never mind a web designer. A 8th grader could do a better job. Just my opinon.

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At last night's council meeting, Mayor Santos attacked Councilman Mangin's suggestions on cuts to the budget posted on this messsage board as irresponsilbe and reckless. He referred to Councilman Mangin's suggestions as being posted on a "web blog" but did not mention Kearny On The Web by name. Councilman Mangin defended himself and pointed out that his cuts were not irresponsible but that there had not been expenditures from some of the accounts for several years and that the funds were coming from other line items (accounts) and that the town was budgeting twice for the same service. Why doesn't the Mayor participate on this message board and explain why would the town want to budget twice for the same service and then borrow by bonding to pay for that service?

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