Today’s Community News stated that Tony Luna gave an
“end of the year report” at the Lodi council work session on January 14. I was the only member of the public present at the work
session. No newspaper reporters were
present.
Tony Luna NEVER gave a “State of the Borough” or end
of year report. In fact, when it was
time for him to give his monthly Manager’s Report, he handed the council a
sheet of paper so he wouldn’t have to discuss his report publicly. He never provided a copy to the public (me). This is no way to run a public meeting.
So why would Luna break tradition and not discuss his
Manager’s Report publicly? Because last
year his tax/spending claims were questioned and debunked. So this year, he skipped all conversation on
the matter and fed the Community News a press release.
The press release sounded so good, I would vote for
this administration if I didn’t know better.
But I do know better.
Luna has nothing to brag about with regard to
municipal taxes. In 2013, Lodi had the
second highest effective tax rate in all of Bergen County. There are 70 towns in Bergen County.
These charts speak for themselves:
Tony Luna wants to blame all the tax increase on the
Lodi Board of Education. Even if that
were the case, the Lodi council is one in the same with the BOE and have blurred
all lines of separation on the tax bill.
You have the same few families sitting on the council and the BOE. You have council members employed in our
schools and board members employed in the borough hall. You have a combined number of 14 “Yes” people
on both bodies controlled by Tony Luna and Joseph Capizzi. They raise taxes together.
The Lodi BOE is responsible for a lot of the
tax increases but not all. Just look at municipal
spending over the last 2 years. In 2012,
municipal spending was $24,581,470.29.
It 2013, it rose to $25,280,227.65.
That was an increase of $698,757. 36 or a 2.84% increase. Yes, their spending surpassed 2% from 2012 to
2013. And municipal taxes increased at a
time when Lodi saw its council bonding millions of dollars for the most basic
expenses. They gave Lodi more taxes and more debt.
And some of the things Luna says just don’t make
sense. Take this quote from today’s
paper:
"ShopRite, the new Lodi Mall and the WaWa complex alone have added $18,647,400 to our assessed value. Our ratables on these projects alone are $592,987,000. This would be comparable to the taxes received on 658 homes paying taxes of $9,000 each," said Luna.
And Shoprite was built by 2007. Luna included it as a 2013 achievement.
