Ask the average person, bottom line, how much corruption ends up costing them. They will probably answer 10 to 15 percent of their tax money. It makes sense. It's a problem, but a small problem. It's how things ultimately get done.
Now what if you learned that corruption is the MAIN reason your property taxes are so high? What if you found out that most of your tax dollars ultimately get lost and wasted just so a few people can reap unearned rewards from your hard earned dollars. Would you get upset then? Or would you simply go on and say, "that's the price you pay to get things done"? Better yet, what if you woke up one day and saw nothing got done.
Now what if you learned that corruption is the MAIN reason your property taxes are so high? What if you found out that most of your tax dollars ultimately get lost and wasted just so a few people can reap unearned rewards from your hard earned dollars. Would you get upset then? Or would you simply go on and say, "that's the price you pay to get things done"? Better yet, what if you woke up one day and saw nothing got done.
Our recent School Board tax levy increase of $4.5 million is a direct result of all the corruption that has been going on in Lakewood, especially the last ten years.
When builders are allowed to build with no consideration of whether their development will cost the taxpayer or add to the tax base, it costs us dearly. Now times that by ten, then twenty, what do you get? The politicians and zoning board members may have gotten what they wanted. The builder got what he wanted. And the taxpayer footed the bill. Add to that a bunch of unsupervised people that constantly reassure us that they are trying to LOWER taxes, yet cannot find the time to keep us informed about where our money is going, and politicians that have no clue where to spend money to help improve our living standards, and the cost of corruption ends up being substantially higher than we originally thought.
Any time there is an expenditure of money with no transparency and no accountability, corruption will surely follow.
How much longer will we let people like Senator Singer give away out valuable resources for schemes that benefit his friends and benefactors. The Blue Claws Stadium should be netting us millions to offset our property taxes, yet we are locked in a contract that COSTS us millions each year instead. We host a Cogen power plant that puts our health at risk, for a small amount of property taxes paid by a power plant that generates millions a year. We sit in traffic on route Nine, while those that want to attend a Blue Claws game can enjoy the new entrance and exit to the Parkway allowing them to avoid any contact with the city that hosts their favorite team. Whatever favors were needed to widen Route Nine were wasted to build the Parkway access.
When Committee member Steven Langert finally admitted he is a partner in building a housing project that required zoning changes, that is not beneficial to the taxpayer, and had no disclosure whatsoever, yet he remains on the Committee for even a day after the corruption was revealed, is a travesty. Other politicians have resigned for conflicts of interest that were far less obvious.
There is no discussion of any substantive changes to how we fund our schools, our police force, or our public works simply because it works for all the corrupt people, so why should they fix it.
It is time we opened our eyes and did an accounting. Think about all the money that gets wasted, and how much damage is done simply for the benefit of a few corrupt people. Then we must ask ourselves what we will do to change it.
And to those who say change isn't going to happen, think about how things were three years ago and how much has changed already. Now let's finish the job.
Please pass this article on to a friend. The more people that know the truth, the faster we can fix our problems.
Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy and Enlightened Passover.
Harold Herskowitz
and everyone at
The Lakewood Times
When builders are allowed to build with no consideration of whether their development will cost the taxpayer or add to the tax base, it costs us dearly. Now times that by ten, then twenty, what do you get? The politicians and zoning board members may have gotten what they wanted. The builder got what he wanted. And the taxpayer footed the bill. Add to that a bunch of unsupervised people that constantly reassure us that they are trying to LOWER taxes, yet cannot find the time to keep us informed about where our money is going, and politicians that have no clue where to spend money to help improve our living standards, and the cost of corruption ends up being substantially higher than we originally thought.
Any time there is an expenditure of money with no transparency and no accountability, corruption will surely follow.
How much longer will we let people like Senator Singer give away out valuable resources for schemes that benefit his friends and benefactors. The Blue Claws Stadium should be netting us millions to offset our property taxes, yet we are locked in a contract that COSTS us millions each year instead. We host a Cogen power plant that puts our health at risk, for a small amount of property taxes paid by a power plant that generates millions a year. We sit in traffic on route Nine, while those that want to attend a Blue Claws game can enjoy the new entrance and exit to the Parkway allowing them to avoid any contact with the city that hosts their favorite team. Whatever favors were needed to widen Route Nine were wasted to build the Parkway access.
When Committee member Steven Langert finally admitted he is a partner in building a housing project that required zoning changes, that is not beneficial to the taxpayer, and had no disclosure whatsoever, yet he remains on the Committee for even a day after the corruption was revealed, is a travesty. Other politicians have resigned for conflicts of interest that were far less obvious.
There is no discussion of any substantive changes to how we fund our schools, our police force, or our public works simply because it works for all the corrupt people, so why should they fix it.
It is time we opened our eyes and did an accounting. Think about all the money that gets wasted, and how much damage is done simply for the benefit of a few corrupt people. Then we must ask ourselves what we will do to change it.
And to those who say change isn't going to happen, think about how things were three years ago and how much has changed already. Now let's finish the job.
Please pass this article on to a friend. The more people that know the truth, the faster we can fix our problems.
Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy and Enlightened Passover.
Harold Herskowitz
and everyone at
The Lakewood Times
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