Punishing Residents

The average homeowner in Greenburgh pays their property taxes without much fanfare. Many have chosen to include their taxes in their mortgage payment and never really “see” the tax increases and simply pay their increased mortgage payment without much thought. Most residents are also “headline readers” or willfully uninformed as to what is going on with their local government and its officials. Greenburgh taxes have risen exponentially in many cases and are only realized if and when the homeowner sees or pays their bill independent of their mortgage. Property taxes for municipal services in Greenburgh have soared by 54 percent in Unincorporated Greenburgh, and 145% in the villages.

Case in point? Our increased water bills for the last three years. To soften the blow of an under-financed water department (there’s really more to it), Mr Feiner took it upon himself to raise the water tax two years in a row for a total of 102%! And while the rate change addressed the immediate shortfall, he insists new water meters be installed throughout the Town, claiming faulty meter reading amounts were the cause of the financial deficit. Since we were able to quickly address the deficit in two years, perhaps we’ll see a reduction in our water rates to an evened-out amount and an end to the water meter folly? Not likely.

Additionally, Mr Feiner ignores the real estate tax increases punishing residents for the various districts when he makes his speeches about staying within the 2% tax caps “imposed” by the state. The Fairview Fire District had released its proposed 2013 budget in excess of the NYS 2% cap. The district’s proposal would increase homeowners property taxes by 4.95%, with the bulk of the increase being retirement and salary costs! Add to this the ever-increasing school taxes – for the children – that each year are supposedly going to new and improved programs that ostensibly need to be created/replaced/tuned-up/increased/expanded, etc., with correspondingly dismal results. The taxpayers wallets are seen as an endless source of revenue by each taxing district. And for those not working, working part-time or not making the money our Supervisor does, they have all they can do just to get by.

We all know that having a job is a good way to help our community flourish, unless it’s the Fairview section of Town. This has been Mr Feiner’s dumping ground for low and no income people, DSS recipients, Greenburgh Housing recipients, displaced people and so on. He has ghettoized this area to “protect” other areas of the Town and Villages from it. Hmm, do you think that’s why he always gets the Villages vote in the elections? It couldn’t hurt.

Go to some of the buildings in the Manhattan Avenue area without an escort and report back to us how it felt. The police department spends a concentrated amount of their time there for criminal activity and the fire department mostly for ambulance and some fire calls. While these people may need or even want a job, you never see Mr Feiner and his job bank working to employ them. Why not? They are expendable to him except at the voting booth. Watch for another Lanza-funded program to be offered to them at the TYCC so he can boast what he’s done for them this time.

Every politician promises jobs to their electorate at every election, even Mr Feiner. Yet, we all know government doesn’t create jobs. What government does, in particular Greenburgh government under 22 years of the Feiner Administration, is desperately seek new ways to tax, fee, and regulate business to death. The Town Board’s recently failed attempt to add a hotel tax as part of their revenue stream was introduced and pushed by Feiner friend and sidekick in Albany, Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti. He claimed that this tax was justified because the hotel patrons utilize our highways and roadways, free parking and beautiful landscapes. What Mr Abinanti, Mr Feiner and others don’t understand is that the tax they seek to impose will not be paid by the hotel. It will simply be passed along to the customer. Eventually, the customer or more importantly their company will say, “Enough!” and stop going there. Most of the other politicians have been equally disappointed because they just cannot understand the real world of business. For Mr Feiner, never having been in the private sector, this is strictly an abstract concept. The hotel managers on the other hand are relieved the tax never passed into law.

Dan Conte, president of the Westchester Hotel Association and Manager of the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, stated most of Westchester’s hotel business comes from corporate clients. Even a minor room tax can mean the difference in a choice of hotels, he said. “Every penny does count when it comes to the decision makers,” he said. “The misnomer is that it’s a victimless crime.” They are competing with hotels from White Plains, Fairfield County, Connecticut, and Northern New Jersey. These are more readily accessible to public transportation and a broader range of dining options. He noted that the county already charges its own 3% tax on hotels in addition to the sales tax. “We don’t understand, again, why they continue to single us out as an industry,” Conte said. “The economy has gotten a little bit better, but it’s not better.”

The New York State 2% tax cap that Mr Feiner knowingly boasts of adhering to can easily be overridden when necessary and is fraught with exemptions. With his mismanagement of the Town’s finances, his false tax cap savings and ever-increasing certiorari refunds, other taxing districts are forced to compensate for their respective shifting revenues, blowing any tax cap savings out of the water! This last Town Board meeting (8/14/13) approved over $2 million in certiorari refunds. The 47% non-tax-paying-not-for-profits operating in the Town, the twice-monthly certiorari adjustments the Town Board authorizes at each Town Board meeting, are choking the rest of the tax-paying residents of the Town and must stop! We pray Mr Feiner doesn’t decide to start a Greenburgh BID. Even though they are proven losers, he seems to embrace one bad idea after another.

The Greenburgh electorate is primarily comprised of democrats and they have the ability to change the Town. The Democratic Primary for Town Supervisor and Town Clerk are the two contested positions in the September 10th Democratic Primary election. Mr Robert “Bob” Bernstein and Sharron Fantauzzi, respectively, are running against the incumbents for Supervisor and Town Clerk. ABG urges all registered democrats to vote in this primary and help to create A Better Greenburgh.