Orange residents want answers

Anger is in the air at forum to explain new property revaluations

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

BY KEVIN C. DILWORTH

Star-Ledger Staff

Tempers flared, pleas for financial relief were made and Orange residents last night demanded answers about new property revaluations that have caused home assessments and taxes to skyrocket.

More than 300 people packed the Heywood Avenue School auditorium for a city-sponsored forum to explain the city's first property tax revaluation in 42 years, and how everyone has the right to request a one-on-one meeting to discuss the new figures.

"It is a must to do property revaluations in each and every one of the municipalities in New Jersey," said Jack Kelly, the city's chief financial officer. "Once the state mandates something, it must be done. We had to do it."

Kelly's comments, as well as Mayor Mims Hackett Jr.'s remarks noting how Orange's property tax burden has shifted from industrial and commercial to residential, were either booed or challenged.

Despite assurances the property tax shift to residential owners is to balance years of inequity involving commercial and industrial owners, many of whom have taken Orange to tax court, talk about a residential tax revolt surfaced.

One angry resident, lawyer Patricia Rivera, pledged to lead the charge to file a lawsuit against the city over unfair assessments. Others suggested overburdened homeowners eventually might lose their homes.

"It's my intention to sue the town," said Rivera, who added she cannot believe her Heywood Ave nue residence has been assessed at $500,000, and the city wants her to now pay an annual $16,000 property tax bill, as if urban Orange is an affluent suburb. "We are not South Orange. We cannot market ourselves that way."

Right now, "there are six houses for sale on my block," Rivera said.

The state Attorney General's Office ordered Orange to update all property assessments, for the first time since 1964, to current market values.

Over the past 42 years, Orange often has seen a high property tax rate -- it was $37.77 per $100 of assessed valuation last year, compared with $2.78 per $100 of assessed valuation today -- coinciding with mismatched property assessments.

"Each and every one will have an opportunity to sit down and go over each and every part of (the assessment)," Hackett told the crowd, many of whom could not get into the elementary school's auditorium because of overcrowd ing.

Despite the assurance -- also offered by Kelly, and Glen Sherman, a representative of Appraisal Systems Inc., the Mendham firm Orange contracted to update properties with current market values for all of the city's 5,144 tax-producing properties -- more than two dozen residential owners complained about unfair revaluations.

When Hackett and Kelly reminded the audience that much of the city's $31 million proposed municipal tax levy goes to pay for services, especially public safety, and for rising employee health insurance costs, firefighter Elvin Padilla, head of the Firemen's Mutual Benevolent Association union, criticized them.

Padilla said the city's firefighters and police officers are not to blame for high property taxes, an increased municipal budget and an increased tax levy.

The city has failed to pay municipal pension costs for police and firefighters for more than six years and allowed the rank and file of both public safety departments to be depleted to the lowest numbers in years, Padilla said.

Jason Jackson complained the property taxes on the home he and his wife bought a few years ago have jumped from $7,800 to $14,000 a year.

An East Highland Avenue homeowner said she had been paying $4,900 a year in taxes for a house she purchased for $215,000, but now a new property assessment says her residence is worth $315,000 and she must pay $4,000 more in property taxes. That is an awesome $ task for someone who makes just $42,000 a year and carries a $1,700-a-month mortgage, the woman said.

Miriam Jackson, a Heywood Avenue homeowner, said she purchased her home in June 2003 for $238,000 and wondered how the assessment company now says her home is worth $505,000.

"I was like, 'What?' How can this be?" Jackson said.

Sherman denied any of the new assessments were unfair.

"Our goal," he insisted, "is not to over assess anyone."

Kevin C. Dilworth covers East Orange and Orange. He may be reached at kdilworth@starled ger.com or (973) 392-4143.