Regarding the Saratoga Springs Library:
"When they built the seperate assessment for the library that was to pay the bond down. The bond was paid off a couple of years ago at which that tax was supposed to disappear. The school district decided that they wanted to keep the tax there. There was a lot of uproar about it two or three years ago. We put it up for a vote and the vote went through to keep the fee," said Franck.
"Twenty years from now there isn't going to be any [new] libraries. Probably ten years from now. There is no reason to open up libraries anymore. Everybody gets books on ipads and stuff. There aren't going to be books in school. Some states are already trying to change the law to basically force school districts, they're doing this in Florida to use ipads or tablet devices because they're going to save so much money."
"I like going the the library, its a beautiful place but they're going to be a thing of the past because they are so expensive. I mean that library [Saratoga Springs Public Library] cost more to build the basement than it did the rest of the building because the water table was only two feet deep. So the cement to encase the basement cost more than the other two floors above it," said Franck.
Regarding the election at the Library: (Usually happens in the Springtime)
The reason that there is a separate election for the school budget 'is because the school budget is on a fiscal year of July 1st-June 30th and the city is on a calender year,'
"We also have a special assessment district. If you have a building within a certain range of Broadway you have to pay an addtional tax. So for this building [511 Broadway] I pay an additional tax. The additional tax is used for improvements on Broadway. The [property owners] on Broadway, their taxes are going to go up because of this parking lot [Woodlawn] because the special assessment district is kicking in some money from that," said Franck.
I asked John about the Public Comment period and its restrictive two minute rule. Each municipality is run differently. Malta and Milton have no such restrictions and I have always wondered why the Citizens of Saratoga Springs have been kept to such a stringent and rather unforgiving time frame:
John Franck: "When Val Keehn was Mayor, she had two public comment periods; she did keep it to two minutes which is more of a guideline than a rule. Mayor Johnson did away with the other public comment period. What you can do is workshops [Like the one Franck hosted and fascilitated last week regarding the Housing Authority and bed bug fiasco] and in workshops you are not stuck under a certain public law that you are under City Council meetings. You have to do the business of the people. If we let everybody go for 45 minutes then you're not going to get anything done.
Another issue for Saratoga Springs is the lack of neighborhood associations. Currently there is only one in Saratoga, there used to be many neighborhood associations. Accounts Commissioner Franck suggests that neighborhoods along with City Council members hold public meetings. He suggests having these informal meetings after Labor Day. The residents who live on the North Side of town could perhaps meet at Skidmore, South Side residents could meet at the South Side Recreation Center, and those who live in Geyser Crest could meet at the Saratoga Eagle Beverage Center, East Side could utilize Caroline Street School etc.
Franck feels that so many community residents are hesitant to attend City Council meetings because 'its daunting,' Franck candidly admits that until he was elected to public office he had never attended a city council meeting. "People are afraid to come, its not a Democrat or Republican thing. They think, 'I don't want to go in and start trouble and then all of a sudden my assesment goes up,' said Franck.
Citzen Nancy: Speaking of Assessments, they have not gone up:
John Franck: We have not reassessed the city [of Saratoga Springs] since 2005. One, its too costly, if you're going to reassess the city you gotta do it right. And you have to reassess it every year and the cost of doing it properly is a half million dollars. And then whenever you do a reassessment you can add another half million- a million dollars in legal fees in defending the assessments. My point was when I came into office they reassessed in the hottest real estate market of all time. I found it to be unconscionable that people were going to think that our house values were going to go up every year by twenty percent. When I came into office we were at seventy-eight percent of full market value meaning that the first year I was in office the building prices went up twenty-two percent. Since I've been in office [properties] have gone down in value. We are probably going to be at eighty-four percent of full value. Full value meaning the number in 2005. So, were getting closer to were we were in 2005 and through trending analysis and information we get from the county and us going through properties the values of houses have been going down since 2006. If I go through and reassess peoples homes right now the average reassessment would go up about sixteen percent. It makes no sense.
Plus, originally New York State was giving us $5 per parcel but they took that away. We have thirty five taxing municipalities in Saratoga County, only two are at a hundred percent. Wilton and Malta. Everybody else backed out of it because it was too costly. Milton was in it but after one year they got out of it. Greenfield got in it and then out of it. It was too expensive. The problem like all problems with government; its simple to fix, you take the Assessors out of the local municipalities and have it run by the county. Then the county assesses all properties at one hundred percent annually.Everybody is paying all these assessors, when it should be run through the state as a conduit for the county. Thats just about how every other state runs it but not New York. And the reason it doesn't is because its a colonial state and for many years the Assessor was the most powerful person in the city.
Labels: John Franck, Saratoga Springs Politics, Saratoga Springs Public Library, Special Assessment District