Missing the (Park) Point

One of the many "Tax Park Point" signs around town.

New Paltz, whose residents positively beam when they can collaborate on a common goal, but at the same time are often so eager to fight that they will dress each other down for agreeing poorly, is missing a golden opportunity to bridge a longstanding gulf.

Signs protesting the Park Point project cropped up seemingly overnight this past weekend, and after reading so much about my neighbors' feelings online and in the paper, I was interested in knowing what it was all about.

The website on the signs, parkpointpetition.com, points to a petition to the IDA asking that this mammoth project not be given a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) instead of paying based on its assessed value.  Woodland Pond, the senior community which was built in a wetland and pays pennies on the dollar of its assessed value, and yet continually cries poverty, is a recipient of a PILOT agreement, which is typically awarded with the reasoning that whatever project is being built will bring in enough jobs and economic activity that the deep discount will offset the loss in property taxes.

I've had a number of people point out that the petition contains grammatical and factual errors and misleading information, and some of them won't sign because of that.  For example, taxing this project won't actually add a million dollars to the school's budget.  School districts and other property-tax authorities decide how much money they need, and then it get divided among us landowners based on how much the town assessor says our homes and businesses are worth.  So an extra million would save the rest of us a few bucks.

It's the savings that are key, here, because the petition is being championed by (gasp!) local landlords.  Property taxes are a big deal for landlords, because they are harder to get around paying.  Income tax deductions are plentiful, and the unscrupulous landlord who collects rent in cash and doesn't report it saves even more, although I imagine at a much higher risk of being audited.

So the group of people which actively opposed the middle school renovations are now arguing in favor of the children.  It bothers some people, but I say, "Who cares what their motives are?"

New Paltz is a community of politically-active intellectuals.  That means that no good deed goes unpunished, because no matter the idea, someone and their friends will think it's terrible and fight you on it, tooth and nail.  Republicans and Democrats.  Village and town.  Landlords and homeowners.  Students and residents.  Farmers and cowhands.  We are always drawing lines and looking for things to fight about, and for me at least, it's tiring.

In fact, I'm getting tired right now just thinking about how I will get taken down a peg for this view.

What matters is that, at this point in time, the bulk of concerned citizens of New Paltz don't believe that Park Point deserves a PILOT.  It's an opportunity for collaboration, but anti-Park Point activist told me, "That ship has sailed."  I urge that friend, and others who are hesitant to work with landlords, to take a step back and consider whether your grudges are what's important today.

And to the landlords themselves, particularly those who wrote the petition, please consider the legitimate criticisms of its wording for what they are:  a desire to ensure success.  Misspellings and poor grammar always undermine the message, especially in a community built around the ivory tower.  Misrepresentations, intentional or not, will both turn off the critical thinkers who might otherwise offer support, and be used by the true opposition against you.

As it happens, I don't believe that the landlords' real concern, that of new competition undermining their ability to make a living, has much merit.  Rest assured, the college will continue to add far more students than it can ever house, even if all of New Paltz is eventually shoved into its poured concrete maw with scrabbling glass pyramids of greed.  In truth, I think building it at all is a terrible idea for this community.

But on the question of taxation, I wholeheartedly agree:  if this abomination is to be built, let it be taxed like the rest of the land in New Paltz.  Fair is fair.

Enemies all around us

Trying to make advances in education in New Paltz is about as futile as the attempts of the Danaïdes to fill a tub with water to wash their sins away.  In fact, as this week's budget vote shows, even trying to minimize the cuts to education is mostly unacceptable.

Putting it another way, trying to ensure that New Paltz remains affordable for the people who live here and wish to use real estate as an investment in this community is damned near impossible.  In fact, as this week's budget vote shows, we very nearly saw an unacceptably large tax hike get shoved down our throats.

Two sides of the same coin, and it's the same old coin, despite the extra wrinkles thrown in by the tax cap.  Education is part of the long-term planning we make as a society, but that doesn't mean diddly to someone who is fighting to fend off foreclosure or only bought that house because they were told that rental income is "passive" in some alternate reality.

It's a crappy system.  New York State has abdicated its obligation under its own constitution to provide education, shifting it, as our spineless legislators always do, onto the local municipalities and taxpayers.  But even if the state did its job, that would not make the ballooning costs magically stop ballooning.

This anti-budget message went viral on Facebook.

What I think I'm seeing is related to the so-called anti-intellectualism movement, and might actually help me explain why that idea isn't entirely without merit.

This week's budget proposal exceeded the tax cap, and only 60% of those bold budgets got passed statewide, while something near 99% of the budgets within the cap requirements were approved.  Just as they did with the middle school renovation, the board worked really hard on explaining why they needed this money, how important it is, and what bad things would happen if this didn't pass.

And that's where the problem begins.  I don't think people are actually opposed to education, nor do I think people are really offended by intellectual pursuits, but boy do they hate snobbery.

Now I'm more educated that many Americans, and much less so than many New Paltz residents, and from where I stand it seems that each degree a person earns beyond the first has a chance of injecting some snobbery into their attitude.  The way it's expressed is through an unspoken message, "My idea is correct.  I know more than you do about this subject, so obviously if you disagree with me it's because you don't understand what I am saying.  There is no valid reason for you to disagree other than your own ignorance.  I shall try to explain this in small words your uneducated brain can understand, because once you do you will bow to my superior intellect."

The problem is, there are other points of view, and this approach dismisses those views as ignorant.  Given the amount of time that the board spends researching these subjects, it's understandable that they and their supporters (which include me) believe that this budget was the best possible option.  But to approach the problem as if you already have dismissed all of the arguments and this should be a foregone conclusion forgets one fact:

Their vote does not depend upon your knowledge.

Do I think it's sad that Highland's budget was defeated by people who can't spell?  I sure do.  But it wasn't defeated by people without education, it was defeated by people who vote.  The voters have the power to deny you what you want, and as Robert McNamara notes in The Fog of War, the best way to deal with that dynamic is to empathize with the enemy.  (I'm using "enemy" loosely here to describe the people who have the power to deny, in this case the school district voters.)

How much empathy was shown for the naysayers?  Did we:

• imagine the fear of someone on a fixed income who sees a tax increase which is twice the Social Security hike for the year?
• ask for their help in lobbying for a new way to fund education?
• talk to them about why we insist on negotiating multi-year contracts with the unions, which tie the hands of future boards by making up to 75% of the school budget contractual and thus untouchable?
• work with them to find ways the community can help make up for the quality programs that are being cut?

New Paltz sees itself as a battleground, and thus it is.  There will always be people without children living here, and people who only use properties to make money, and their views will always be exercised in the voting booth.  It may not be fair that this is the only local budget subject to such scrutiny, it's the system until we can get it changed, so maybe it's time to start empathizing with the enemy rather than just drawing new battle lines.

Are you voting April 10?

The school district's special vote to allow the purchase of land is coming up.  I think the paper has done a pretty good job of laying out the reasons why they want to spend this money in this way right now, but from the letters and what people are telling me, either people aren't understanding or they really just don't agree.

From what I understand, this land purchase would be made with money the district already has, but can't use -- it's a reserved fund balance.  The first question on the ballot will be to take care of the accounting, and allow the money to be used on real estate.  The second actually gives them the green light to do it.

The board believes that this is the best way to give the community what it wants.  More land will allow the district to consolidate by adding buildings there, replacing the decrepit middle school.  That addresses the safety concerns of that old building, or at least opens the door to doing so, and it does it with money that can't be used to save teaching jobs or programs.

I think this is about communication more than anything else.  I don't think this is a case of the board overreaching, but they are definitely hellbent to go through with this despite the strong negative reaction provided in their survey.  Yes, a lot of land will come off the tax rolls.  Down the line, maybe that prime middle school property will be put back on.

What do you think the tax consequences will be in the short and long runs?  If you're voting, would you be willing to share your reasons for your vote?

Unification isn't the real threat

It's not unification that is most likely to destroy the "way of life" people who live in the village want so desperately to protect - it's the lack of solvent taxpayers.

The village board is trying to find another $300,000 or so in budget cuts, and they're running out of things to even consider.  I was told that they might even consider laying people off - people like the ones that are busting their butts cleaning up after us this week.

I was dumbfounded that the situation is so serious, and asked if they had considered other options to keep the full work force, like furloughs and shortened work schedules and pay cuts.  Less of a job is better than none, I would think.  Apparently the unions don't see it that way, and they aren't willing to reopen the contracts.

Now I'm all for collective bargaining, but if this is true it's a case where the members are not being represented by their union.  How does it help anyone?  $300 might mean four to six people (I'm not sure exactly, because benefits have to be considered in the total employee cost) that are out of work.  It will probably mean the same reduction in services as any of the other options I asked about, but with more people jobless.

The only problem I have with collective bargaining is the idea that you can be required to be a member of the union.  This is why unions sometimes - often - don't have their members' interests at heart.  If employees could freely join and leave - and for that matter, freely create and dissolve a union - then groups like CSEA would see enrollment dip when employers are humans, and rise when they become monsters.  There's no reason why union membership needs to be a protected class, and there's plenty of reasons why it shouldn't.

I wonder if that's a contract negotiation point?

School Board should Fight for Real Tax Reform

What a mess our antiquated tax system has put upon our heads. People have been up in arms about high property taxes in New York, and then our state's unbalanced economy crashes because of a dependence on Wall Street "productivity" to sustain itself - or, I should say, to sustain the state's tax revenues. Now a governor that was pondering relief of those taxes is going to have to slash state aid to local governments and programs, including schools.

In truth, I never liked the property tax cap plan. You don't solve the problem by not letting school districts spend more money, even if things get more expensive. If you watch the New Paltz school board meetings, you'll quickly realize that much of what the district pays for is controlled by state mandates or ironclad union contracts over which they have little control (and which themselves are certainly worthy of a post). Controlling spending is definitely a good plan if you want to reduce taxes, but this is like reducing your kid's allowance by a buck a week but expecting him to pay for more expensive lunches anyway.

What I would like to see our local school board do is make a stink about the medieval system of taxation they're forced to follow - land has not been a useful measure of wealth for a couple of centuries, after all. David Dukler and friends should rally districts around the state to throw down the property tax system altogether, and replace it with something more equitable. Education is the responsibility of all of us, and should be paid for by all of us. We've heard louder and louder grousing about high taxes for years, and it's the job of our elected representatives to make sure Albany is really listening.

I'm terrified that as a senior citizen I'm going to want to vote down school budgets because I want to stay in my home, and that's a pretty crappy place to be. Governor Paterson's plan, though, is more than a bit shortsighted, and I'd like to see better.