A new robo call was issued over the weekend by the group calling themselves Concerned Citizens of Middletown. I received the call Friday when I check my messages on the answering machine.
This latest call talks about whether or not you fell stressed because you can't make ends meet and have to live within a budget, something that the Middletown Township Committee has a hard time doing. The Township is currently $73 million in debt according to the message and will have to borrow more money to pay for tax appeals.
Listen to it and please comment, I am interested in seeing what readers think of this latest call that went out to residents. If you have a hard time hearing the audio (I tapped it off the answering machine), I transcribed the message below.
Hello, I am a middletown resident, stressed like you, and needing to cut my budget.
Have you heard the Township Committee cannot live within its budget?
They raise taxes, then borrow more money to cover poor planning.
Our debt level, currently at 73 million will have at least an additional 6 million to cover the tax appeals from the last re-evaluation.
Can your budget survive this kind of borrowing? Mine can't.
Paid for by Concerned Citizens of Middletown.
19 comments:
That voice sounds like someone from Chestnut Ave.
Thanks for the message Paul.
Is that debt number right? Does it include "notes"? Seems like the committee has accrued a substantial amount of debt.
Anony 8:40 a.m.
You sound like an elitist SOB who knows no better !!!
Maybe you should get the message because NOBODY,black,white,yellow,purple or green can afford this crap about financial mismanagement ANYMORE!!
That's why they did the reassessment so they could screw those below the town average to give breaks to those in higher assessed houses . Just run the numbers.... .472 cents per hundred.
We need every citizen to be CONCERNED !!!
Anon 5:59pm. Why so hostile? Why don't he just say he is a democrat representative from Chestnut Ave. I am not an elitist SOB. My taxes have gone down from 2 years ago,& I am not in a high assessed home.
Anony 7:08,
You sound like a racist SOB and wait till you get your final bill for 2011 real estate taxes on Aug. 1 Start figuring because your increase is coming .....
Not a democrat and not a republican but someone who knows a bigoted,racist,republican when it rants !
We need every citizen in this community to be CONCERNED !
I think the debt to allocation ratio is about average for a NJ town, but I could be wrong.
Taxes are going up by 3% this year.
"Oh, the humanities!"
In many cases the increases are considerably more than 3 %. In a lot of cases the reassessment had inequities.
Anyone who feels that their property has been unfairly assessed can file an appeal.
The recent reassessment was done to limit appeals, to make the assessments more fair in light of recent drops in the real estate market.
There will still be some inequities I'm sure, but overall the number of appeals is expected to drop dramatically.
Your first statement about Chestnut Ave @ 8:40 is intended to be racist, anonymous 9:27, and not funny at all. CALL the Human Rights Council,nitwit, because everyone who sees through your degrading of others because of their color or their party affiliation or whatever is seeing you for what you really are and it AIN'T NICE !
Every CITIZEN of MIDDLETOWN SHOULD BE CONCERNED !!!!!!!
Anonymous 7:44 a.m.,
No one will really know the impact of reassessment until the final tax bills are sent for 2011 and the certified tax rate has been established. The municipal portion will only be finalized when a municipal budget is finalized and adopted and a certified rate is established by the County Tax Board once all parts (municipal,county,school ,both open space,and garbage,where applicable) that comprise that rate have been submitted and finalized.
Next April 1st will just be another round of appeals because real estate is not predicted to stablize until late in 2012 or even later.
Anon 8:16. I don't know what you mean by me saying the person lives on Chestnut Ave is racist. I don't get it. Please explain. I know someone who is a democrat rep. who lives on Chestnut Ave & that sounds like him. HOW IS THAT RACIST? Can anyone say anything anymore without it being racist. AGAIN, WHAT DID I SAY THAT IS RACIST? I said nothing of color or race, you brought that up. MAYBE YOU ARE THE RACIST!
Anonymous 9:39....you are playing stupid ! Why are you assuming the voice was a DEMOCRAT and not just ONE OF MANY CONCERNED CITIZENS in Middletown.
Believe your intent was clear and not complimentary..... to either a person of color or to a person who is affiliated with the Democratic Party. Everything wrong in this town is blamed on someone else except on the controlling majority for thirty plus years where the blame belongs.
LOTS OF TAX PAYERS WHO ARE CONCERNED are affiliated with both major parties and the other parties also. Get real,you fool no one !
I didn't take the first comment as racist, but maybe I'm naive.
However, I appreciate the information from the robo calls regardless of who sent it.
The people in Middletown need to know what is going on in their town and pay attention.
There's little transparency and the majority would like to keep it that way. That's why they won't consider televising the meetings.
Keep the calls coming.
I love the rhetoric of "many concerned citizens in Middletown..."
How many show up at meetings? How many actually engage with their elected and appointed officials to get information they want and to voice their opinions?
My guess is that the people with political axes to grind or with personal agendas are the few who do.
I don't discount their participation, but the election results over the past several years have made it clear that these so called "concerned citizens" represent a small minority of the town.
I got a call last week from someone that did not identify themselves. The caller urged me to help stop the State Legislature from passing a gasoline tax. Not until the end of the call did I know that it was put out by the Republican Party. Maybe these Republicans are also becoming Concerned Citizens?
Yeah right...the lies.the cheating to win like in these last elections is clearly the reason for the formation of a *concerned citizens group". Decent people are concerned and do want change.Groups like the "concerned citizens" form because there is a problem.
Middletown can be likened to the political machine tactics seen in the cities. Anything goes as long as it keeps the republicans in control in this township. ANYTHING, no matter how low you go or how much slime you sling or how many
lies are told or no matter who is hurt.
Anon 9:16 Can you give details about the cheating in the last election? I would love to hear what they did. And it is a great read for everyone.
Sharfey never tells the whole truth about anything ...e.g. full disclosure about his appointment to the Christie administration and all the lies about the tax increase (which Mercantante finally admitted recently in the Press was nearly 14 %) that were told by both candidates and the slanderous literature launched against Sean Byrnes.AlL is an example of the "cheating " to win tactics of the Middletown republican.
12:09 p.m., you seem to be aware so fill in the gaps.......
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