This is the time to lower our taxes not raise them
S
Steven Lipkin
6 years ago
Health care worker
E
Eileen Donovan
6 years ago
Featured
At this time, it's irresponsible and tone deaf to budget anything for Freightway Development....It's clear the residents hated the proposals and direction of the board before the economy went into a free fall. Listen to the residents. Take a pause - lets see where we are as a community in a few weeks.....Reduce our taxes....don't add to them.
S
Steven Wang
6 years ago
agree!
A
Anne Schager
6 years ago
Please make these obviously needed cuts.
M
Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez
6 years ago
As I wrote in my column on March 31st, the COVID-19 crisis will be worse than the 2008-2009 crisis. Retail sales, industrial production, rising individual and corporate default rates, not to mention the shocking weekly jobless claims already point to the fact that we are in a recession. There will be no 'V' shaped recovery; we will be lucky if we even start to recover at the beginning of 2021. Numerous Scarsdale residents have lost their jobs, are seeing their incomes and savings decline, and many are closing their businesses. As a community, we are only strong and sustainable if we think of the well-being of all of our neighbors. This is the time to show empathy and compassion to the hundreds of Scarsdale residents who are hurting. A tax increase, especially with no documentation of the macroeconomic assumptions being used or justification for appropriations for the allegedly paused Freightway Redevelopment, is not an example of sound fiscal management. This is not the time to create any slush funds. It is the time to protect our residents.
A
Anonymous
6 years ago
Let’s do what is right in the current circumstances and lower property taxes.
P
Phyllis Finkelstein
6 years ago
Raising taxes at this point in time shows a complete loss of touch with the reality of the times.
J
Jill Krutick
6 years ago
Please reduce the Village Budget and our property taxes.
R
Robert Berg
6 years ago
I am deeply disturbed that the Mayor , the Trustees, the Village Manager, and the Village Treasurer all refused to address our $2 million in suggested cuts to the Village's Fiscal 2020/2021 Budget. I spent a lot of time going through the tentative budget line by line, discovering many items that appeared to be unnecessary, excessive, suspicious, or wasteful. I sent a detailed budget analysis to the Mayor et al. more than a week before the public hearing, asking for their reaction, thoughts, comments. I never got a response. So much for their wanting community input. What was truly astonishing is that Trustee Arest actually admitted -- on the record at the public hearing -- that the Village Board has no intention of using the $200k that it is going to take out of your pockets in taxes this July designated for Freightway lawyers and consultants for that designated purpose. Instead, the Board is going to transfer those monies to a contingency fund. So he's admitting that the Trustees are intentionally "cooking the books." You simply can't legally knowingly appropriate tax dollars for a specific designated purpose -- and state that in a legal document which is filed with the State and is relied upon by the public, bond rating agencies, and investors -- when you have no intention of using those tax dollars for that designated purpose. That's fraud. It's not legal. It's nuts. There's lots of other "fluff" in this budget. We could cut it easily by 5% without losing any Village services or staff.
V
Veronica Jackson
6 years ago
This is a horrible time to be doing something like this! Everyone is suffering, please do not raise the taxes but LOWER them for us!
Z
Zoe Berg
6 years ago
During the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, how the heck could Village government RAISE our taxes...?
S
Susi D'Ambra - Coplan
6 years ago
I fully support the Voters Choice Party’s work to fight for a budget that reflects the time we are living in.
Y
Yue Tu
6 years ago
Featured
We are living in a challenging new reality and as many residents have frozen salaries (myself included), impacted business performance and potentially employment at risk, we should look harder to minimize the tax burden to village residents
B
Bob Selvaggio
6 years ago
That Scarsdale tax collectors are looking to squeeze more property tax dollars from our residents given the economic hardships so many face in this pandemic is unconscionable. I cannot recall a single year while living here that taxes actually fell. Time to serve the taxpayer and give some back by tightening belts and reducing property taxes by 5%-10%.
D
Douglas Leone
6 years ago
Village government should be fiscally responsible to the residents. It seems to often that village employees take precedence over taxpayers.
Y
Yingyong Chen
6 years ago
Fiscal responsibility and long term sustainability is of paramount importance at this time, we urge the village of Scarsdale to not onlg pay lip service to residents but also to take concrete actions and reduce unnecessary spending.
A
Anonymous
6 years ago
Please do not raise taxes instead cut taxes under current extraordinary circumstances
M
Mitchell Gross
6 years ago
This is clear a board of Trustees out of touch with the world around us. Rather than raising taxes, we should be donated to others less fortunate in and outside of Scarsdale just the way the town did during the great depression.
This is the time to lower our taxes not raise them
Health care worker
At this time, it's irresponsible and tone deaf to budget anything for Freightway Development....It's clear the residents hated the proposals and direction of the board before the economy went into a free fall. Listen to the residents. Take a pause - lets see where we are as a community in a few weeks.....Reduce our taxes....don't add to them.
agree!
Please make these obviously needed cuts.
As I wrote in my column on March 31st, the COVID-19 crisis will be worse than the 2008-2009 crisis. Retail sales, industrial production, rising individual and corporate default rates, not to mention the shocking weekly jobless claims already point to the fact that we are in a recession. There will be no 'V' shaped recovery; we will be lucky if we even start to recover at the beginning of 2021. Numerous Scarsdale residents have lost their jobs, are seeing their incomes and savings decline, and many are closing their businesses. As a community, we are only strong and sustainable if we think of the well-being of all of our neighbors. This is the time to show empathy and compassion to the hundreds of Scarsdale residents who are hurting. A tax increase, especially with no documentation of the macroeconomic assumptions being used or justification for appropriations for the allegedly paused Freightway Redevelopment, is not an example of sound fiscal management. This is not the time to create any slush funds. It is the time to protect our residents.
Let’s do what is right in the current circumstances and lower property taxes.
Raising taxes at this point in time shows a complete loss of touch with the reality of the times.
Please reduce the Village Budget and our property taxes.
I am deeply disturbed that the Mayor , the Trustees, the Village Manager, and the Village Treasurer all refused to address our $2 million in suggested cuts to the Village's Fiscal 2020/2021 Budget. I spent a lot of time going through the tentative budget line by line, discovering many items that appeared to be unnecessary, excessive, suspicious, or wasteful. I sent a detailed budget analysis to the Mayor et al. more than a week before the public hearing, asking for their reaction, thoughts, comments. I never got a response. So much for their wanting community input. What was truly astonishing is that Trustee Arest actually admitted -- on the record at the public hearing -- that the Village Board has no intention of using the $200k that it is going to take out of your pockets in taxes this July designated for Freightway lawyers and consultants for that designated purpose. Instead, the Board is going to transfer those monies to a contingency fund. So he's admitting that the Trustees are intentionally "cooking the books." You simply can't legally knowingly appropriate tax dollars for a specific designated purpose -- and state that in a legal document which is filed with the State and is relied upon by the public, bond rating agencies, and investors -- when you have no intention of using those tax dollars for that designated purpose. That's fraud. It's not legal. It's nuts. There's lots of other "fluff" in this budget. We could cut it easily by 5% without losing any Village services or staff.
This is a horrible time to be doing something like this! Everyone is suffering, please do not raise the taxes but LOWER them for us!
During the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, how the heck could Village government RAISE our taxes...?
I fully support the Voters Choice Party’s work to fight for a budget that reflects the time we are living in.
We are living in a challenging new reality and as many residents have frozen salaries (myself included), impacted business performance and potentially employment at risk, we should look harder to minimize the tax burden to village residents
That Scarsdale tax collectors are looking to squeeze more property tax dollars from our residents given the economic hardships so many face in this pandemic is unconscionable. I cannot recall a single year while living here that taxes actually fell. Time to serve the taxpayer and give some back by tightening belts and reducing property taxes by 5%-10%.
Village government should be fiscally responsible to the residents. It seems to often that village employees take precedence over taxpayers.
Fiscal responsibility and long term sustainability is of paramount importance at this time, we urge the village of Scarsdale to not onlg pay lip service to residents but also to take concrete actions and reduce unnecessary spending.
Please do not raise taxes instead cut taxes under current extraordinary circumstances
This is clear a board of Trustees out of touch with the world around us. Rather than raising taxes, we should be donated to others less fortunate in and outside of Scarsdale just the way the town did during the great depression.