Monday, November 4, 2019

Spending Your Tax Dollars On Their Way Out the Door

It's a busy Common Council meeting tonight, Monday November 4, the eve of the municipal election and the last night in Council chambers as council members, for several notables including Gerry Daley, Bob Santangelo, Mary Bartolotta, Seb Giuliano, Rob Blanchard, Carl Chisem, Deb Kleckowski, Vance Cotten, and for Mayor Dan Drew and Corporation Counsel Dan Ryan.

Eight Common Council members will be leaving their seats.

Presentations are scheduled of each of the above (with the exception of the Mayor who will be honored at December's meeting).

In addition, there's a lot of potential spending of your tax dollars scheduled.

Medical office building
under construction
 - A $446,000 bonded expenditure for information technology and digital improvements in City Hall
 - A 10-year tax abatement for a medical office building for Frank Galuzzo and Medical Development Associates at 430 Saybrook Road for a development already under construction at the Medical Office Park at 420 Saybrook Road.    It's a $7.5 million dollar project that promises $843,631 in taxes over the ten year abatement period, and $233,100 per year after.  The application does not indicate how much in tax forgiveness is provided on the project, but if the $233,100 figure is used, the developers could save around $1.5 million in taxes over 10 years.
 - A 10-year tax abatement for a medical office building for Frank Galuzzo and Medical Development Associates at 440 Saybrook Road for a development already under construction at the Medical Office Park at 420 Saybrook Road.  It's a $5 million dollar project that promises $1,406052 over the ten year abatement period, with $388,500 annually thereafter. The application does not indicate how much in tax forgiveness is provided on the project, but if the $388,500 figure is used, the developers could save around $2.5 million in taxes over 10 years.  Combined total tax savings for both projects over ten years could be $4 million.
 - A $50,000 expenditure to determine if the Green Street Arts Center, which will no longer be used by St. Vincent dePaul, should be used as an extension Russell Library.

These appropriations are being made by eight council members who will not be in office when these expenditures hit the city's bottom line.





3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope the council rejects the tax abatements. Why should Mr Galuzzo and co. be forgiven taxes? Do homeowners get tax abatements when they build or restore their homes?

Stephen Smith said...

"Hope is a thing with feathers," Galluzzo is a developer with abatements. Council just approved both motions 11-1. For me, the most interesting comments came from Daley and Giuliano. While reading into the record a statement by the developer that cited economic developments that caused increased construction and material costs, Daley offered this simple interpretation --"tariffs." So now Middletown taxpayers are paying for Trump's tariffs? That must be the latest version of the Republican trickle-down theory of economics.

Giuliano, after offering some valid criticism of the wording of the ordinance, seemed to rest his support on the fact that the developer "was promised this" and it "wouldn't be fair" to change the rules on him now. Promised? Business as usual in Middletown.

Anonymous said...

Wait so let me get this straight. After all of the commotion and fighting and arguing, the Green Street Arts Center IS NOT being used for St Vincent DePaul? When did this happen?