The Newark Municipal Council held a special meeting on September 17, 2024, at 10:00 AM in City Hall to consider several ordinances and resolutions. The meeting included public hearings on tax abatements, an amendment to a financial agreement, the sale of city-owned properties for redevelopment, and traffic ordinance changes. After extensive public comment and council discussion, all agenda items were approved, deferring earlier versions of some ordinances from the September 5, 2024 meeting.
This meeting was disseminated on September 12th, 2024 at the time of preparation and posted on the website of the City of North. We've already done the roll call. We are on page three of the special meeting agenda ordinances, public hearing, second reading, and final passage. Item 6PSFAS is an ordinance granting a 20-year tax abatement to 305 Wilson Avenue Urban Renewal LLC for a project to construct a self-storage space in the East Ward. Is there anyone present wishing to be heard on this item? Anyone speaking on SBSF AS? Good morning, police Charleston Singleton. You knew we were coming to this, Mike. You knew we were coming to this, Mike. 20 year tax abatements on the warehouse. Now, tax abatements has stipulations that they supposed to abide by, hiring New Yorkers, fair labor. We had this discussion once before, came up with councilmember Amos, and we didn't want to give a tax abatement. What makes this piece of property for self-storage? Are they gonna give the new work residents a deduction in the rates? And if they don't pay, they're gonna they're gonna auction these stuff off. So why are we giving tax abatements when we don't even have a budget yet? You giving tax abatements, tax abatements, but you can't even tell the residents currently what their taxes will be for 2025 because we still on 2024 budget that's not even complete. If Newarkers, if you didn't just see what happened and realize that this is not government, this is not the way democracy works, this is not what we do in the city of New York or any city in the state of New Jersey when you want to put somebody or step down out of a council seat when you didn't even have a budget. You did not even have a but it's not even complete. Do by June 30th, yet you're having tax abatements. Tax abatements for what? Tax abatements for what? Got people fighting down DPW because they can't cash their checks. We all saw it across Facebook. Isn't that underfinance? HR. People who came up here and didn't even give us a presentation of the budget, an introduction of the budget. Yet this is what you want to do. You just want to go on like everything is okay. No, it's not. Y'all need to stop. I need to know each and every high school y'all went to because civics was not taught. History was not taught. And make sure that those principals, grandsons, and grandkids are not in these schools today. This is not what I was taught. I went to St. Vincent's and East Orange High School. This right here, we read ordinances and resolutions at the time. We were able to check and balance and do accounting work in high school. We hire lawyers and attorneys and do all stuff, and yet we cannot get official city business, which I want to go on like it's okay. And we're gonna get these tax abatements and all these market rates out. Well, I reported you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker. Lisa Parker, once again, gifts to developers. All this for me. Thank you. 20-year tax abatement when you have crippled us financially in this city with a deficit of $680 million, and that's not including the debt, the money that you borrowed. Yet every time we come to this council, you giving away two developers 25 years, 20 years, 30 year tax abatement. Every time we see urban renewal written anywhere on your ordinances, it's associated with a tax abatement.