For the next 10 days people's interests will be directed more to personal affairs than community. Two important meetings will however take place just after Christmas weekend; The Council' special meeting to adopt the budget amendments and perhaps the budget.
Hidden on Tuesday during dinner hour (6PM) so that it would be convenient for the public to attend is the PMUA meeting. We have just received a mailing from PUMA noting that the residents solid waste charge will remain the same. BUT hidden in that charge and not itemized is a "Shared Services" charge per agreement with the City and PUMA. This charge which has nothing to do with our individual "garbage and recycle" service is hidden in the Solid Waste charge and not itemized.
Since by a questionable legal ruling the shared services charges are proportionally paid by every property owner although the formula is not public it is a property tax by inference since it is applicable and charged also to those that have opt out of the PMUA system or have no solid waste service.
Both this "shared services" a municipal agreement and the Sewer service should be tax deductible items which they are not since they are billed by PMUA. Their legitimacy has been challenged but the court decision never moved to the second step of appeal. Sewer service was once on the Tax bill, It is a required municipal service and should be part of our taxes not something to be paid to an tax exempt authority..
The 2010 Council tried to meet with the PMUA Commissioners but the later never kept its commiment to the city to hold that meeting. That should be a priority for the 2011 Council and public hearing held even if the PUMA officials have to be subpoenaed to attend.
2011 will be a new year. Let the local government do it right. Once again for numerous reasons that have been previously posted many times, the 2011 Council should return to the semi-monthly schedule More frequent and shorter meetings with enable the Council to be more responsive.
We are waiting for an official indication of the termination agreement with Dr. Gallon. Since it contained money matters paid for by our tax dollars, it can not be a concealed matter DR. E=MC² has been posting another analysis of the PSS. His latest posting contains so many powerful statements that it should be required reading for Board members. http://www.dremc2.org/E%3Dmc2/Blog/Blog.html
For teh next week at best there will only be a sporadic posting of this blog.
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That shared services fee is the bain of my existence. It's bad enought that my taxes have increased by $1500 in the last 2 years and will increase again this year, but raise the shared services fee? Geez! Everyone's hurting and it seems that in return we get more taxes and more fees. Eventually I will have to leave Plainfield because I won't be able to afford to retire here!
ReplyDeleteThe City Council needs to step up. As does Mr. Green. We have seen them both take decisive action with the Taylor fiasco; now they need to do the same here. They have it within them. They simply need to find the will to act.
ReplyDeleteLilas
According to the reports I read, the shared fee is going up to $81 per quarter. That's over $320 bucks a year. That's got to be a mistake. It can't cost that much to clean up the garbage in public areas. Please tell me this is a mistake.
ReplyDelete