Posted on 04/19/2009 9:37:45 AM PDT by lowbridge
I have friends who pay $12K in Montclair on a house valued only slightly higher than yours.
The Hindian population in GN is nothing compared to that of the Route One corridor in Central Jersey (Iselin down to Princeton/Lawrenceville). Help raised the test scores in the formerly ho-hum towns of Edison and Woodbridge, although I can do without the "Mumbai Mansions" built up to the property line after they tear down the post-war cape cods.
Speaking of migrations, what can be done to stop the skinny hipster kids from invading Astoria? I prefer the Arabs on Steinway to those spoiled little punks.
Kick their asses...Brooklyn style.
The Greeks and Arabs seem to be holding their own. The Latinos have been moving out as the hipsters take over many of the rentals and the construction/restaurant industry took a dive, so that is where the vulnerability is.
Wasn’t the “learn to swim program” a government funded program aimed at teaching blacks to swim?
Total RE taxes. I live in a neighborhood that is considered the best bargain in the county vis a vis taxes/schools. Other nabes in the district pay 3 times that amount.
LOL, it’s all gonna come crashing down sooner rather than later. State and local liabilities to retirees are off the freaking charts. Tax revenues to those same states and localities are dropping precipitously. Houston, we got a problem.
Good teachers should be paid great wages. It's the bad teachers who get great pay and can't be fired that bothers me.
I would agree with you too if in fact their jobs/raises were performanced based. Nope, after 5 years, with the unions, you can't get rid of any of them. It truly is disgusting but us Islanders only have ourselves to blame...we vote the school boards (who negotiate teacher contracts and are lap dogs of the teachers union) and budgets in. My buddy lives in a gated community in East Islip (works 12 to 14 hrs a day to be able to afford the house)and he has two elementary teachers living across form him in a $1 Mil house and driving two Mercedes. Hie teacher friend showed him a Union memo that told teachers to buy third "commuter" cars like Honda, or Toyota to drive to school as the people in the district may not like seeing teachers parking Acura's Lexus and Mercedes vehicles in the parking lots. Please, these people know exactly how they have beat the system. BTW, teachers in NY also have a great pension...they get 20 sick days a year and they can sell all unused sick days as earned income their last three years teaching...this is good as it can almost increase the avg of the last three years salary by 25% to 30%.... The pension is 80% of avg. gross of last three years. What a joke. Some teachers net more per year retired then working after they retire. Disgusting.
Ok, if you run a company into the ground you get nothing and refund what you were mistakenly paid for the prior five years.
Now lets base teacher pay on number of students graduating with an grade point average above "c". But then they would inflate the grades just like the bailout queens are now doing on their records.
btt
The pitchforks and torches come out when these bloated pensions lose funding. Unfortunately, it will be too late by then to have any effect.
Sad thing is, under Obama, LI school teachers are now “the rich”. I guess you get what you vote for.
I think what is bothering me is I watched the value of my home go down over 100 K in a few years however my taxes are still asseseed at the old value that I could not sell my house for.
Not going to go into all the details, just basics..
The same exact house as mine just 2 blocks away sold for 120 k less then the value we are being assessed at. Their house also had all the perks ... central air, upgraded everything that we have not done. Both homes built in 94. The people who owned that house before selling had won a substantial NY lottery prize that allowed them the ease of making huge upgrades. We have not had that option but get by comfortably.
When we bought our homes in 95 they were large for the area so we have been carrying a heavy tax burden since...which is fine.
Now values are horrible. Taxes are not going down.
Teachers salaries are going up.
This is going to turn into a case of the taxpayer not showing up. What is going to happen when the homeowners cant keep paying the rate? We can move I suppose. I wont get the price I want. The person who buys my house is going to carry a heavy tax burden.
The last person to suffer is going to be the teacher in the Union. In fact the only way the could suffer now is if layoffs happen or schools start to close. I guess that is possible soon but not probable.
AHH I could go on and on. It is a shame that the citizens, the taxpayer, allowed the teachers unions to run around uncontrolled with threats etc. in order to get their way. I guess in the long run the teacher will be forced to suffer when the taxpayers revolt.
It is starting to feel more and more like it is the honest homeowner on Long Island who is going to pay the price over and over again.
I am frustrated.
I have relatives on LI. Their property tax burden is unbelievable. You all have my sympathy.
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