Today’s News
-
- September
- 25
You know something is wrong with the cost of living around here when a guy from Mahopac in Putnam County says the taxes are getting too high.
Mahopac is supposed to be a safe haven for people looking to escape places that are a fiscal nightmare—places like, well, Yonkers. But the story is that Putnam County property taxes might go up 40 percent.No, that’s not a typo. Forty percent!
This prompted Guido Boniello, a retired transit worker to say, “I don’t want to leave Mahopac. If this keeps up, I wont’ have a choice.”
So if a place like Mahopac is out of reach…where are people supposed to go?
It’s getting out of hand. And they’ll get you coming and going.
Because if you want to flee, you’re going to have pay more money to get out of town.
That’s right. Here’s another item in today’s news: Fare and toll increases are being proposed. That means higher charges on the MetroCard and increases on tolls for Interstate 95 at New Rochelle and the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Unbelievable. But wait. U.S. Rep. John Hall says help is on the way! He came up with a hot idea that supposedly helps the middle class. He’s proposing that people be allowed to use the short form to deduct property taxes on their income tax. Wow, what a guy! You can already do that on the long form. Well, maybe somebody out there would benefit from this, but I’m hardpressed to figure out how. I think most middle class people would prefer real tax relief.
Also in the news today—A White Plains man was arrested after he frightened a parking-enforcement officer who was writing up a ticket. The 41-year-old man, who was as tall as a power forward, allegedly screamed swear words at the officers and broke his hand-held computer.
The man was charged with third degree criminal mischief and he may regret that he freaked out over the ticket.
But here’s the point—White Plains isn’t merely the county seat, it’s also the parking ticket capital of Westchester. Higher tax, larger tolls, ever-rising utility bills—it’s insane. People are getting nickel and dimed to death.
And there’s the parking fines. Getting one of those White Plains parking tickets which are really nothing more than random tax levies, drives people over the edge.
It’s only a wonder more people aren’t freaking out. But scaring parking attendants isn’t the answer. Throwing the bums out of office is the answer.
That’s today’s new. As Will Rodgers once said, all I know is what I read in the paper.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 3:18 pm by Phil Reisman.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
| 
Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
Throw the bums out of office, indeed. We may as well all be living in Mississippi.
I made the mistake of finding myself in Mount Kisco yesterday at 4:45 P.M.
Luckily, I had a full tank of gas.
About 1000 idling cars sat mired on route 133 where it passes the Metronorth station, nobody moving at all. I pulled an illegal U turn, and skedaddled south on route 117, until hitting a total roadblock there, too. Now it was 5:30. By about 6:15 I made it to the stoplights on 9A at Briarcliff, and joined the solid wall of stopped cars going slowly north on 9A.
The country is gone.
There is no Westchester County, as you and I imagine it, or remember it.
In its place, there is a kind of “Wealth Ghetto” stretching from Hopewell Junction, south to the Bronx border, a rich man’s prison where yearly house taxes equal or surpass a lifetime’s earnings in Africa, (or in our father’s day).
No travel at all is possible there, between 6 AM and 10 AM and again between 3 PM and 7 PM. To fit in , one’s home must exceed 4000 square feet. One’s income must exceed $200,000 per annum, to fit the new norm.
Taxation is now based on this new norm, as are all incidental fees. Recent articles have complained about having to give 12 year old teenies $300 bucks to go to a concert, but $300 bucks is just the initiation fee.
In the new Westchester, you are going to live trapped in your palatial, useless house, taxed until you squeak, not in control of your kids, and basically told what to do by your Mexican gardener, who knows how to get all the good under-the-table deals.
For this we fought World War II ?????