Bond Referendum

Here is a Letter from Doris Bialas, Bialas Farms, Warwick (Note that much has been made of how successful the Bond issues in Warwick have been, and this town is often mentioned as one of the "success stories"by the bond supporters. However, here is the real deal from someone who lives there, and has seen the effects of the taxation first hand)

To all those who thought they were voting to SAVE FARMS when they voted for the Open Space Bond, step forward and tell that to our Town Board. We were misled into thinking if you voted YES, you would be helping to preserve your WORKING FARMS.
The two that have been chosen: one is the home property of a Vet. From what I understand, he uses this land for the recovery of sick horses. This is NOT a farm. Yet this land will be PAID to keep it open, when the intent was to NEVER develop it anyway. This is his home, who would build homes on his/her homeland? I haven't had the time to see IF this land is already receiving an Ag exemption.
The second "farm" has only been farmed by others, not the owners.From the way I understand it, they rent the land to other farmers to keep their Ag exemption. Nothing wrong with this. He is helping to keep open space without the cost of farming. Most, if not all, large landowners do this. After all, they don't want neighbors too close, nor do they want the responsibility of mowing and taking care of the land.
Okay, so where are we with this Open Space stuff? Our first purchases will NOT be to working farms. So we can rule out saving a farm. Second thing, when we spend this money, EVERY WORKING FARM will be taxed. That seems counter-productive. Save farms by taxing them more? Something is very wrong with this. As WORKING farms, we are SAVING OPEN SPACE with out anyone BUYING our rights to develop it. Doesn't this seem to make more sense and dollars?
Since those with the power, have shoved this down our throats through misleading information as to what will really happen with yours and my tax dollars, stand tall and firm. The time is now, get to the Public Hearing on Thursday. I will be requesting our town place the importance of YOUR working farms top priority. I will ask all of you to help out with this. Your farmers can't afford to pay twice for open space. As working farms we are saving open space, to tax us for other open space is irresponsible and will be "another nail in our coffins".
Farmers need the support of all of you. We can't do it alone, we are
too few. We hold no political power nor the voting block of any politician. Farmers are always "hung out to dry" by people who make decisions thatadversely affect us more than most. We are small businesses that spend most of our income in OUR community. We hire local people, who also spend their money here. When anyone makes purchases from a local farmer, we recycle YOUR money back into our community. Thank You. We can't make it work without all of you.

Gardiner $1.5 million Bond issue – Things you should know, and “FAQ’S”

The Open Space Committee (OSC) cites research from American Farmland Trust (AFT) about the cost of “doing nothing” about residential development, and that it will cost taxpayers more. Can I trust these numbers?

The American Farmland Trust (AFT) is a for-profit organization with over $15 million in revenues in 2005, according to their Annual Report. They work with governments (towns) and corporate clients (land planners) and land trusts, with the goal to “permanently protect millions of acres of America’s best farm and ranch land”. According to their list of services on their website, AFT will “analyze data and create the messages you need to prove that saving farms and ranches provides fiscal and economic benefits to your community.” In other words, they are paid “spin doctors” who will, for a fee, provide the research communities need to try to sell open space programs to taxpayers. The numbers quoted by the Open Space Committee showing that residential use costs more than farmland….is not specific to Gardiner. It reflects communities and municipalities that have high-cost services such as paid police and fire departments, large DPW departments, and community water and sewer infrastructure…which Gardiner does NOT.

The OSC talks about other towns that have recently passed bonds referenda for OS preservation. What does that mean for Gardiner?

Nothing at all. Gardiner is unique, and we have our own set of circumstances. It doesn’t make sense to take a “monkey see-monkey do” attitude and advocate a program just because some other town has done it.

Where does the number $51 come from?

This is a hypothetical number put out to try and placate taxpayers that the cost of open space will be within their budget. However, this number is for a “median” assessed property, for a 20 year bond, at an interest rate that the town admits they don't know, and which could be 6, 8, 10% or even more. The OSC and the town, in fact, have no idea how much this loan will cost taxpayers until they borrow. With the way interest rates are going up, this $51 (for the median assessed property) will be much more. Large landowners with higher assessments on their properties will pay much more.

The $1.5 million loan is on a first step, as the open space committee readily admits and boasts about. In addition to the cost of the loan, Gardiner’s Open Space Plan recommends either hiring a full time open space project manager or a full time open space consultant in order to administer the spending of the borrowed money, which will add another layer of government at more cost. The Open Space Plan also calls for creating a Capital Reserve Fund for open space, where tax dollars can be easily funneled into a ready spending fund and preventing the town from getting taxpayer and voter approval. Both of these options will cost taxpayers untold amounts of present and future tax dollars.

Under the bond proposal, would everyone pay the same amount?

No. Theoretically, the added tax levy would be on the assessed value of your property, just as most other property taxes are determined. Property owners who have large parcels of wooded or open land will have to pay much more just because their larger parcels are assessed at a higher rate. Large landowners would be penalized for having parcels that offer everyone else a great view and open land. Mohonk Preserve, one of the biggest landowners in Gardiner, would continue to pay exactly zero in taxes to our town. NYS pays special, low discounted taxes for their government forest/park land, and they get to determine their own tax assessment. And, remember that dollars from New York State are dollars from our own pockets.

How will the bond proposal affect housing affordability in Gardiner?

It will have a negative impact on affordability, just as all taxes do. Unless spending cuts are made elsewhere, taxes will go up for most people, and it will have the biggest impact on the people who can afford it the least.

Is the bond proposal an “optional” program?

No, not if you are a taxpayer in Gardiner. The pundits of the open space borrowing and mortaging of the town are spinning the idea that the program is completely "voluntary", and only those who wish to participate have to do so. In the case of the landowners who sell their property or put it into restrictive easement, this is usually the case. However, overly restrictive zoning and inability to use the land as they wish sometimes pressures them into conservation for lack of an affordable alternative. For the taxpayers who have to foot the bill, there is no way to "opt out" of the taxation.

How would the borrowed money be allocated?

The town’s 2006 General Fund Expenses budget is $1.25 million, and it requires administration by 6 elected officials, several full time bookkeepers, one paid CPA, and NYS Comptroller’s Office oversight.

The Open Space Committee says that a “bi-partisan” Conservation Advisory Council would be selected to determine what gets “protected”, what market values will be put on parcels, and how the $1.5 million of borrowed money is used. The “Council” will be hand picked and appointed by the town board. We think that this is comparable to putting the fox in charge of the hen house. There is no specific information provided about what criteria will be used to select this Council or even if it will be made up of Gardiner residents! This thinking is neither reasonable nor desirable.

Bonding (borrowing) for Dollars

The Town Board meeting of April 4, 2006 took up a lot of very important matters. One that stands out was the presentation by Lewis Eisenberg relating to the way Open Space will be funded. It is quite obvious that Mr. Eisenberg’s Commission (Environmental Conservation Commission), echoing the trend of the administration, intends to issue a bond for purchase of Open Space. Of course issuing bonds is the same as borrowing money, the interest on which the taxpayers of Gardiner will be responsible.

The Trust for Public Land, an environmental group intent on keeping as much land as possible undeveloped, has a program implementing their ideal. They will conduct a telephone survey of about 200 Gardiner residents to determine their attitude toward Open Space and the manner in which it is acquired. Mr. Eisenberg said for example, a question asking if increased taxes would be acceptable would be asked. Mr. Eisenberg was asking the Town Board to put their “seal of approval” on the survey to be conducted by the Trust, of course which they did. It is interesting to note that Councilman Bialecki, when a question was asked about who would be called to answer the survey, laughingly said ‘the highest income earners in Gardiner’. He then made an aside comment to reporter Anne Pyburn to ‘not print that’.

More property taxes at a time some are conducting rallies against high property taxes would seem a no-brainer to the poor property taxpayer.

The questionnaire used in the telephone survey, and the list of persons surveyed should be made available so that the slant, if any, of the questions and the possible selectivity of those questioned will be clear. Much is constantly made of the infamous Master Plan survey that helped spawn that current document, but the results were undocumented, unscientific, and unreliable. Of the 2,300 surveys sent out to Households, there were 851 (37%) responses, but of these, 27% were not even residents of Gardiner. Indeed, responders from the town (or outside the town?) said that they wanted to Protect Scenic Vistas, but 53% did not want to pay more in taxes to do so. Of the respondents who said they wanted to see open space protected, 59% did not want to pay more in taxes to do so. So, why would we expect, with our taxes even higher than ever, that taxpayers would all of a sudden have changed their minds?

Bonding for Dollars II (June 20, 2006)

The article below was written over two months ago when the concept of borrowing money to fund open space was openly discussed and presented by the ECC to the Gardiner Town Board. At that meeting, the ECC was asking the town to approve a survey of about 200 yet-to-be-determined Gardiner residents regarding town borrowing for open space preservation. This intended survey would be implemented by the Trust for Public Land. This survey was to be conducted in addition to the one already showing that “.....of the respondents who said they wanted to see open space protected, 59% did not want to pay more in taxes to do so[1].”

At the most recent meeting of the ECC on June 19, the following information was made evident:

The survey discussed in the article had not yet been done, had no firm projected date for completion, and in fact, was still just being contemplated.
Contrary to the results of the Master Plan survey (59% against raising taxes for open space funding), the ECC, encouraged by Behan Associates, still plans on floating a bond issue, possibly as early as November of this year.
The ECC has for some time been in behind-the-scene private discussions with large landowners, and possibly making promises and commitments that they are not authorized to make on behalf of taxpayers.

In the past 6 months, about 1/6^th of Gardiner’s land mass has been permanently “protected” by court decree. In the past 6 months, Gardiner has seen the transition of about 1/6^th of its land mass from private ownership to state government ownership. It is not evident exactly how the towns’ revenues will be negatively impacted, and what that impact will be on town property taxes. Until then, we find it unthinkable that the ECC and/or the Town Board could even propose such an increased burden on taxpayers.

We also find it puzzling and contradictory that the Town Supervisor can complain so loudly about the burden of high property taxes as a spokesperson for the “Property Tax Nightmare” group, and in the same breath discuss imposing new tax burdens on landowners, the children of landowners, and the grandchildren of these same landowners.

Stay tuned for more on this issue.

[1] Taken from the most recent Gardiner Master Plan document