Town Bills $5.5M for Projects
Sep 8th, 2010 | By Greg Hazley | Category: On tapThe Secaucus mayor’s office said today that special assessments have been issued for three projects totaling $5.5M in town that were previously being covered by taxpayers.
First Ward Councilman Gary Jeffas said in late July that town officials discovered that taxpayers had been footing the bill — principal and interest — for the projects, as well as others, for several years. In some cases, an engineering report was required before bills could go out and that was never done.
“It should have been done dating some time ago, but luckily when we assess these things we can assess the interest…” he said. “You’re going to see some positive results on this.”
Mayor Mike Gonnelli said the three payments announced Wednesday include reconstruction on Castle Road ($3.4M) and Penhorn Avenue ($700K), as well as a culvert replacement along Sack Creek ($1.5M).
Tax collector Nick Goldsack said all of the 40 or so properties targeted with the assessment are commercial.
Special assessments are used when public works or other projects benefit specific areas or tracts of real estate, the owners of which are then charged for the improvements.
The town has borrowed at least $6.5M for projects that should have been billed via special assessments, according to Gonnelli. “Not one penny of that should have been paid by any taxpayer,” the mayor in July. “In 2006, four years ago, bills should have gone out to recoup that money.”
Gonnelli added today that the tabs will be paid annually for the next 10 years at a rate of about $552K, providing some budget relief down the road.
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Why didn’t the previouos mayor and council bill the commercial properties involved? Why wasn’t the engineering report completed so the bills could go out? Why didn’t the previous mayor and council make sure theri engineer did his job? He got paid for it, didn’t he? Mayor Mike, it looks like you inherited a mess!!
We should all be asking Elwell and Iacono what happened. Maybe some more closed door meetings.
Must be a lot more to the story, why the town never billed the properties. The previouos mayor and admin. must have had something going on.
Good job finding this! I like to know if this was incompetence or corruption?