Hang On to Your Wallets. Where are the Dissenters now?

Hang on to Your Wallets! Where then is the Outcry Now?

Budget Storms and Fake Concerns

During the recent Mayoral Elections here in Parsippany, the then former mayor Barberio, using the Town Council Meetings as his platform to attack then Mayor Soriano's Budget, cried "Hang on to Your Wallets". Not only was this improper grilling at Council of the mayor during an 2020 election inappropriate, the accompanying attacks from BOE officials, and republicans voters was also disingenuous; especially from "senior citizens", who cried about being taxed out of Parsippany due to a minor "municipal tax raise" proposed; The average $4.32 to remedy shortfalls. The BOE official, blatant in party affiliation attacking Mayor Soriano, demonstrated unethical conduct. Where was the appropriate non-partisan nature that is expected of school boards. The fact that a School Board Member of Republican extraction was a Council Candidate can not be missed.

The Poor Citizen Senior No Show
The false scenario of the poor senior citizen being taxed out of his home, was also a phony, and partisan staged show. Where was this senior citizens element when mayor Barberio raised taxes even higher? The fact that senior citizens on set incomes can receive a tax-freeze on income up to $94,178 or less, as of 2021 and have the difference returned was not mentioned. So what is the crisis except a fake political show!.The fact senior citizens receive no tax reduction for BOE, is perhaps where their concern, should be, or that more funds for education or and other things like water infrastructure should be forthcoming from Federal sources seems to have alluded them.

Made Clear but conveniently ignored. All things have a beginning
Councilwoman Janice McCathy explained clearly why "municipal taxes" (not BOE) had to be increased. The fact that our water/sewer surplus was used as tax gimmick for Political Personal Re-election goals for Mayor Barberio, who was clearly responsible for this, mattered not. Michael Soriano became the political "fair game" scape goat. Stepping into a crisis clearly not created by him; his being a Democrat was the offense, and that is clear! Apparently Council Republicans although appearing to concur with their and McCarthy's findings at the time concerning the budget, choose to ignore all for Political Blindness.

Water is a Public Trust and so is it's funds for water and sewer.

Not only during Soriano's time as Mayor was COVID pandemic rampant, but Parsippany's water infrastructure was failing, and several wells were lost as sources of potable drinking water. (not surprising in a town over-developed, and with excessive impervious surface)( Parsippany had not done a good job in the past of defending it's ground water recharge areas, and well heads, choosing tax-ratables' over ecological safety for our ground water supply source). Money became due. Obviously, like a checkbook, when the balance gets low you need to stop writing checks; not only was the checkbook unbalanced the mentioned water infrastructure failures had to be addressed, and paid for.

PILOT Deals Ratable Chase?
Barberio now again wishes or will simply again without public consent use the "Ratables Chase" as the remedy. One must ask, who will he invite to Parsippany, and what deals will be made in the process. If Barberio really thinks the ratable chase has benefited Parsippany, where is the proof, and why is Parsippany in an alleged financially compromised position? In short what good has the ratable chase done Parsippany? Why during his past administration did he allow our former attorney to sanction a PILOT deal with UPS, after announcing it as a ratable? Our former attorney also left Parsippany vulnerable to developers lawsuits because of the coming Housing Mandates. This gave us the 1515 Route 10 PILOT deal.

Housing Fear. Why in an Over-developed Vacant Building Landscape?
Mayor Barberio instead of preparing Parsippany properly beforehand, knowing the Housing Responsibility was coming, failed to acquire open space that any Municipality is entitled to, allowed more inappropriate unwanted scorched earth development under the false premises, he was saving sensitive lands undeveloped from developers by developing it. waterview and the UPS office complex stand as evidence, of his giving Parsippany to the corporate power over the people of the town. He also allowed his former attorney to remove Parsippany from Highlands Regional Master Plan under false contentions and out-right lies concerning the actual benefits for Parsippany. To this day Mayor Barberio refuses to admit that what occurred during waterview was wrong, in many ways; believing he saved this sensitive landscape from Housing is simply false.

Another Ratable Chase, or another deal with the Great Job Creator?
Hopefully no new land will be taken, if any still exists for another ratable chase. Barberio's desire to hire more police will surely short circuit any benefit from any new ratable. Many times a ratable amounts to a deal that benefits the developer more than any resident. In the contest to attract commercial properties, the price of "winning" involves essentially giving away the store, via tax breaks, thereby neutralizing the fiscal advantage those properties are theoretically suppose to bestow.Whatever the reason, any town that thinks the secret to beating it's neighbors at the property tax game is to score the next office park, or shopping mall, should probably look at the data first. As far as the race for non- residential property goes, the conventional wisdom is simply not supported by the evident.

Did the Ratable Chase ever consider environment?
Sustainable scale Ecological economics contend that for any given ecosystems setting, there is an optimum scale of the economy beyond which physical growth in the economy (throughput)(waste) starts costing more than it is worth in terms of human welfare.

Knoll Golf $1.5M? Golf Only
During the Council Meeting of August 2 Barberio's figures for the budget included $1.5 Million for the Knoll Public Golf Utility. The Knoll contributes nothing to the benefit of the resident tax-payers. If anything it detracts, as employees from Parks and Forestry, Water and Sewer are used when needed on the Course. So why was this given as some form of benefit to overall budget figures?

Chump Change, A resident collective; perhaps $5.00 or less a month would remedy.

Lastly the money we are talking about here is chump change, and shows the resistants against these minor tax raises an attack on the common good. The same Republican cry babies are the ones that allow/desire the intention of government itself to be demised for private interest. Don't tread on me, tread on somebody else. The cult of the individual and a negative form of freedom. When will the trickle down even trickle? 1/10th the US defense budget alone would provide Health Care and Education; here is where the problem lies, not at the local level..When government is no longer the "means proper" as intended by the founders, but simply laissez faire, we have lost the republic to corporate power instead of democracy, corporate interest have become neither fathers nor friends of the people. The term "means proper" was common in the early republic forgotten today; why is that?