To the Editor:
We received this notice from the Town of Mamaroneck listserve at 8:07 p.m. on Friday, November 15, 2024. It gave notice that there would be a hearing on a proposed local law to authorize a tax levy in excess of the tax cap on Wednesday, November 20.
While such short notice may be legally sufficient, anyone who has ever done P R knows that if you want to bury news, you send out the press release on a Friday after close of business.
At 8:07 p.m. on a Friday, most Town residents are likely finishing dinner, putting children to bed, and turning their attention to the holidays as carols play on television commercials. By sending the notice out so late on a Friday evening, it makes it appear as if the Town Board wanted to reduce actual notice so there could be fewer people questioning the merits of the proposed law.
To avoid such an appearance, the Board should give more publicity to proposed laws, especially major ones such as this.
Respectfully submitted.
Robert S. Herbst
And I just found out about this today, one day after the hearing.
The Town also sends out it’s annual Assessment letters every year much later than is sufficient to have enough time to easily appeal them. I have never received my letter less than one week after the time we are legally allowed to start appealing. The Town needs to be sending these a month earlier.
Public hearings after the board has made its decisions are just legally required shows.
Transparency would have the town board give up its town paid dinner meetings and instead stream/record its so called “work sessions”.
Sunshine improves financial accountability.
I agree with my friend Marco. Double digit tax increases for next year and maybe another double digit increase and then another the following year is a problem. How are 10 per cent increases sustainable?
A ten per cent and higher tax levy increases for the next couple of years is a problem for me and my friends and just sounds totally onerous . I hope they do something to avoid that.
I know that our Town Supervisor, the other members of the Town Board, Meredith and others spent many hours trying to make the increase smaller, but it would have been nice if the TB had sent each of us a list of the major changes, and the reasons for them.
Ralph,they need a finance committee of townwide taxpayers. No matter how much we respect them and how hard they try, they can’t be the budget advocates and judges at the same time. The town budget involves tens of millions of our tax dollars and spans three distinct tax paying communities. There’s only one comptroller and nobody else allowed to gently kick the proverbial tires before the public gets a chance to speak at the end of their process. . They need to hear that the levels of tax increases planned over the next three years (above ten per cent) are unsustainable for many if not most in our tri municipal community.
The lack of notice is nothing new. The real issue is that the budget is proposing a .
9.95 per cent average tax levy increase. For the villages they are planning a 15.7 per cent tax increase. Their plan is to pass double digit tax levy increases in the next two years .
The public hearing on the 2025 budget is December 4. Either write a letter or show up to say that double digit increases in taxes for the next couple years is not feasible for the majority of town residents.
They don’t hear from us and think it’s ok. Tell them it isn’t.
Further to my other note: I meant to say the law only “legally allows” the excess levy but doesn’t do anything. The budget process is still what determines everything. This is nor anything new. Just watch the last meeting on LMC to get educated,
Every City Town Village in NYS does this every year. The Town is very transparent and it’s too bad this “letter” makes it seem that they are not. To me, this person is either ignorant or has an ax to grind on something. But I do not know him
I am not sure that “[e]very City Town Village” seemingly buries notice of a law to raise the levy above the tax cap. Going above the cap is serious where we already pay among the highest property taxes in the nation, our ability to deduct the taxes is limited, and there may be other impacts such as on the STAR exemption.