Photo: Senator Jon Corzine (left) Mitch Geier (right) 

Mitch Geier

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Sewers for Our Downtown

Skyrocketing Property Taxes

Bringing in Ratable Businesses

Education

Grant Money

Skyrocketing Property Taxes

 ·        Property taxes in Plumsted Township increased 14% in 2003!

·        Property taxes in Plumsted increased 93% in the last 10 years!!

·        Can you afford for property taxes to continue increasing at the rate???

The Geier 5-Point Property Tax Reduction Plan

1. We will bring fiscal responsibility back to our municipal government.
2. We will attract good, clean “ratable” businesses to our community to defray our property taxes and to bring much needed services to our community.
3. We will actively seek grants that will benefit our community while defraying taxes both short- and long-term.
4. If residents vote down the school budget (as in 2003), we will bring in an outside consultant to review the budget line-item by line-item and make recommendations to assure our children a quality education while respecting the decision of the voters.
5. We will work actively to pressure the state of New Jersey to finally enact property tax reform.

Bringing in Ratable Businesses

One key strategy to reducing our reliance on homeowner’s taxes is to attract good, clean ratable businesses.  These businesses contribute tax dollars that defray reliance on homeowner’s taxes while contributing much needed services to our community.

Examples of the types of ratable businesses we intend to attract:

Education

 Providing a good, quality education to our children is critical.  We MUST do a superb job at educating our children.

 New Jersey has a regressive tax system that relies heavily on property taxes to fund education.  This system is unfair to homeowners, unfair to educators, and unfair to our children.  Any system that forces retired grandparents to move out of state because they can’t afford the onerous property taxes that educate their grandchildren is critically flawed.

 We must change this regressive, unfair, and burdensome system.  I am committed to working to pressure the state to reform this outdated system.  In the interim, the Township Committee has a deep responsibility when the citizens vote down the school budget, as they did this year.  When residents vote “no” on a school budget, that budget becomes the responsibility of the Township Committee.  They have a responsibility to approve a budget that finds efficiencies in the system, that provides a quality education, and that respects the decision of the voters.

 I have a long history of taxpayer advocacy and commitment to quality in education.  I served on the board of Hands Across New Jersey, a grass-roots organization committed to taxpayer advocacy.  I was also the Founder and Chair of Citizen’s for Better Education in his former community.  This group actively worked to improve the quality of education for students in that school system.

 Grant Money 

Grant money is an important tool to supplement a municipal budget.  I believe in actively obtaining available grant monies to reduce the need for reliance on municipal property taxes.

 It is important to understand that while our current administration has presented “grants” as if they were “free money,” that this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Grant money comes from our taxes – county taxes, state taxes, and/or federal taxes. 

 I believe we should actively apply for our fair share of all grants that will benefit our community in the short- and long-term.  We should not delude ourselves, however, that grants are a free ride.  We are paying for these grants out of our own pockets in other tax dollars.  Unfortunately, there is no free lunch with grants.

Sewers for Our Downtown

Why are they selling out or town to big land developers?

 This administration has delayed, railroaded, and ignored the need for sewers in our downtown area for over a decade.  Now that the pressure is mounting for sewers in the downtown, this administration is attempting to cut a “devils bargain” Selling out our lifestyle to big developers. They intend to have a big land developer bring in sewers in exchange for rezoning our township to allow for a large development. There is no doubt no matter what spin is put on it that this will add children to our schools and increase property taxes.

 This is not how we should be bringing sewers into our downtown!  This is a bad deal for our community and will only result in increased traffic and a decreased quality-of-life, while enriching a few big players.

I am committed to creatively problem solving the sewer problem by working to attract federal and state funds to allow for the proper, controlled development of our downtown without contributing to our already skyrocketing property taxes. I have recently obtained commitments form both Jon Corzine and Frank Pallone to assist with obtaining grant funding for the sewer project.

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Last modified: August 24, 2008