Thou shall not whine.
- Tim Russert
Face it, we don't live in Kokomo do we? We live in Highland Park, a small borough of 14,000 people. It has been projected that we've passed Princeton in population, which in itself is a feat. However, even with the influx of people, do you see your taxes going down? Not at my end. I live on the utmost edge of the borough, in the Triangle area, and even then our taxes are off the roof. Highland Park's existed for 105 years, and for the first 94, we seemed like a normal bustling community of the 20th century. The last 11 have been pure hell. Over the next little while I am going to advocate my reasons for why we need change in this tax central.
In November 1999, a female Democratic ticket, led by Meryl Frank, won the election for our mayor. Defeating James Polos, by far one of the best mayors I think we've had in a long time with questionable measures, such as bashing Polos and Dominic Ceminaro, his runningmate on things that don't exist. In January of 2000, she took the job as our 29th mayor in 95 years. I promise you that this may have been the most regretful decision we as a borough have made. Off the start, she seemed to be a normal mayor, but we gave her a few months to see that there is a serious problem developing. Its common in government that the borough council is different-minded and might overrule ideas the mayor comes. It is on one of these situations, in Frank's first month of office where this gets blurted:
"They (the Borough Council) wouldn’t treat me this way if I had a penis."
Something sound wrong? What mayor should use that kind of talk to describe her borough council. So what if she's been outdone by the council, which had some Polos-related persons on it still. You're the first female mayor, but telling your constituents that they wouldn't have problems with you if you were a man is out of line. In real life, that would be the line of a "sexist pig". Frank while being very rude and arrogant to others liked to make herself look even more popular by citing things like making her husband contracts million dollar jobs with Public Service Energy & Gas (PSE&G). In 2002, Frank talked to owner of Dresses For Less, a low-price dress store located in the former First National Bank (now PJs). The words that came out of her mouth show she shows no respect for anyone who doesn't agree with her.
“Jewish women who go to the synagogue every Saturday don’t want to shop at a store called “For Less."
So wait a minute, just because you don't like the store does not mean you need to be a racist as well? People in bad economies, if they need a dress for cheap, they can probably get one. You've basically just there made the entire female Jewish population in Highland Park especially upset because you've included all of them in an insult to a business. Politicians are supposed to support local businesses. Not insult them because you hate the lower-price class of the store. People want to shop there? So be it. If its any hint to the problem, Dresses For Less is gone and is now a popular coffee shop with wifi.
“You didn’t vote for me.”
“In some cases, there are some (businesses) that clearly don’t belong.”
“It was a no brainer.”
These three comments I have chosen to post, all come from December 2004, when new designs for the downtown were brought in for the town. The first one was to a local business that objected to having his store cut from the design plans on the block. So we like to be a sissy for someone not voting for you? Hint to Meryl: No one is going to 100% support you. The second comment was made not in direct to a business but definitely shows that Frank has no care for businesses she doesn't like, and as a result, brought forth the third comment, which is when she declared which properties on Raritan Avenue should be blighted from Highland Park. Excuse me? You are worse than Obama in that standpoint. If you think driving away business because you don't like them shows how low minded you are. People try to make livings out of these businesses and you can't just drive them away because you don't like them.
Probably one of the few good things to come out of the Frank administration was the dumping of the Chamber of Commerce and replacing it with Main Street Highland Park. Main Street's a great thing and all, and I definitely volunteer when I can. However, there comes a point in day where I can't say that they are out of the fire either. I remember Graham Copeland, who ran Main Street for a time during Frank's administration. During the time I was only 16, I went to some of their meetings on community development. Just before the 8th time I went, the board at Main Street when and banned anyone under the age of 18 to handle being at meetings. It annoyed me pretty badly.
I also know as well that Main Street gets a lot of funding from Highland Park, and the 2004 creation of the "Business Improvement District" "assessment" would be a good sign of the failures this government provides. The Business Improvement District assessment is basically a long drawn term for a $1000-$2000 tax instituted on local businesses on Raritan and Woodbridge Avenues. These are outrageous amounts and it must be paid, no opt out option. This is a big reason, besides higher rents, that businesses are leaving Highland Park. We have more than 15 vacant businesses in town and it looks absolutely embarrassing. Mayor Frank wholeheartedly deserves the blame for the business slowdown. Also a problem with the BID tax means businesses that want to be part of the Main Street "crowd" are often highly publicized and made popular. Good examples of this are Through The Moongate, White Lotus and Over the Moon Toys. When do you not see those 3 commonly working together on public stuff? Ballard Hutkin, the manager of Century 21 is in it about as deep as they are, if not sunk. This BID tax needs to end or I can promise you residents less businesses will be there for your convenience and more of the rich stores of designer crap will be there instead. As a bonus, its very likely with less income in town coming in, that people may get higher taxes (if they weren't high enough already).
This rant leads me to my next problem, the fact that we put our valuable tax money to worthless items. My parents tax bill is high enough already, and we have a cheapo house. If you studied the tax bill, you'd notice most of it is school district tax, almost 4x the amount of basic land taxes. Look where your hard-earned money is heading? Environmental Centers on polluted lands off the Raritan, new awnings and facades for building codes on Raritan, new towers and residential homes, destroying precious parts of the borough, including the YMHA (in the 155-year old Meyer Rice Estate), and the Sisters of the Cenacle Retreat, formerly the home of Robert Wood Johnson. We're losing the real Highland Park of 50 years ago for a modern dictated Harrison Bergeron-style borough.
I realize I've probably taken much of your time, but I am going to put it like this: Sexism, Biased, Opinionated, Determination, Taxing and Hatred. These six words describe the last 10 years of mayorship in Highland Park. We've tried stopping the out of hand taxes, seeing Nancy Wolf ran to stop it. We voted the female motor mouth back in. Therefore, for the 2010 mayoral special election, I am placing my support in Dominic Cerminaro's bid for mayor. In 2011, when we have our next election due to Frank becoming a UN member, I will work to making myself the candidate to fight for mayorship. I may only be 19, but its obvious you can't do well at mature levels either. I hope you will join me.
