DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
Montclair was late in sending out third quarter tax notices to property owners. Can you explain this somewhat complicated situation as simply as possible?
Sincerely,
Facts about lax taxation
Sure! The tax bills were folded into paper airplanes and hurled out of the windows of City Hall toward various property owners as the motion of the Montclair Music Studio students’ viola bows blew those bills west into Idaho, which quickly triggered a potato delivery via PDF (Potatoes Delivered Fast) to the Bluestone restaurant on Watchung Avenue. Meanwhile, the tax bills wanted to shine while skiing near Boise, but the weather was too warm for classes, so those bills returned to Montclair to swim at a municipal pool when it wasn’t closed for a “water incident.” The tax bills disintegrated in the water before being carefully reconstructed for display at the Montclair Art Museum, where property owners began pulling the bills from the MAM wall—setting off alarm bells that Edgar Allan Poe spelled “alarum bells” in “The Bells,” a poem approved by the Town Council along with the meeting minutes. The tax bills were subsequently incorporated into a play at the Vanguard Theater, after which the Montclair Center Business Improvement District (BID) emailed a review of said play to the Town Clerk and Acting Town Manager.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
Sounds plausible. According to a report from Montclair Local, Manager Michael Lapolla said the delay in the tax bill “occurred because the town failed to meet publication requirements for notice of a public hearing to adopt the Montclair Center BID budget. The township, in turn, had to get approval for a workaround solution that involved removing the BID properties and billing them separately.” Comment?
Sincerely,
Give us the BIDness
“The dog ate my homework,” even though I live with a cat, not a dog, and it’s been years since I was at school. I shake my head at the eating habits of dogs.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
Then on March 18, BID Executive Director Jason Gleason emailed Lapolla and CFO Padmaja Rao a PDF of the 2024 BID budget and other documents — after which Lapolla forwarded the material to Town Clerk Angelese Bermudez Nieves on April 5, who asked Gleason to resend the BID budget in Excel format.
Sincerely,
PDF, not PD Eastman
Now I’m confused. What happened to the Idaho potatoes?
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
The Excel spreadsheet Gleason sent on April 5 was locked; on April 16, Bermudez Nieves requested an unlocked spreadsheet.
Sincerely,
Locks around the clock
“April is the cruelest month,” wrote TS Eliot in “The Waste Land,” his 1922 poem about the frequent expenses of the thankfully defunct Montclair Township Council for the years 2020 to 2024.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
That council passed a resolution introducing and approving the BID budget for 2024 at first reading on April 10. According to the local report, “the next step was to adopt the BID budget at a public hearing on May 21. The hearing was supposed to be published no later than May 9. That never happened.”
Sincerely,
Spring thing
A strange way to celebrate May in Montclair.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
And we should mention that our city lost some interest revenue due to the late delivery of tax bills. Anyway, you could go on forever, but people can read local history for more details. All I ask is that you give us a variation on the famous James Otis quote: “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
Sincerely,
Guard post from the 18th century
“Taxes with bungling representation in a town that has Tierney’s.”
Dave Astor, author, is the MontClairVoyant. His views on politics and local events are solely his own and do not represent or reflect the views of Montclair Local.
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