Highlands effort irks mayor of Ringwood

Thursday, February 20, 2003

By JAN BARRY
Staff Writer

RINGWOOD - With preservation of the Highlands a declared state and federal priority, Mayor Jerry Holt is demanding to know who will reimburse communities such as his for lost tax ratables.
In an open letter to New Jersey environmental groups, Holt has thrown down the property tax issue gauntlet.
"It is no longer acceptable for environmentalists to march into a community and place demands and ultimatums on officials and residents, and then leave town without taking responsibility for the impact of your demands," Holt recently wrote in a two-page letter addressed to the New Jersey Sierra Club, Skylands CLEAN, and other groups.
At issue, he said, is that in Highlands towns such as Ringwood, "We are taxed, not only to purchase the property, but we pay enormously high property taxes to support the land that so many others enjoy."
Environmentalists maintain that conserving land costs less than providing municipal services and schooling for new residents.
Two-thirds of Ringwood is state parklands and watershed land for the Wanaque Reservoir system, which provides water to 2 million North Jersey residents.
Holt's letter was sent to environmental groups that questioned a recent approval by the borough Planning Board of a 39-home subdivision on West Brook Mountain in the headwaters of the reservoir. Holt contends the proposed development could bring in $550,000 annually in new property taxes.
The environmental groups challenged the board's action as flawed and forced the public hearing on the application to be reopened. They are working to try to buy the property with state Green Acres funds.
In Holt's view, environmentalists should find ways to compensate Ringwood and other Highlands communities for the loss of property taxes when forest tracts are purchased for conservation. His letter amplifies a resolution passed by the Borough Council last month that calls for increased state payments in lieu of taxes for land acquired for protecting water supplies.
Environmental activists said they were astounded by Holt's letter and attributed it to the fact that his council seat, along with that of three Republican colleagues on the seven-member governing body, is up for election in November.
"Jerry Holt is playing politics. The environmental community has always supported giving more aid to towns," said Jeff Tittel, director of the state chapter of the Sierra Club. "We worked to get additional in-lieu-of-taxes funds under [former Gov. Christie] Whitman. Ringwood gets quite a bit of money for that."
Jon Berry, president of Skylands CLEAN, an environmental group based in Ringwood and Wanaque, sent a letter to Holt questioning the mayor's claim that environmentalists make demands and then leave town. Berry lives in Ringwood and founded the group more than a decade ago with Tittel and other borough residents.
"And your assertion that residents view open space as an overwhelming tax burden doesn't hold up to the fact that 2,271 Ringwood voters (that is, 67 percent of those who voted) chose to cast their ballots in favor of an open space fund tax in 2001," Berry wrote.
Furthermore, he added, Ringwood's largest taxpayer is the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission, which operates the reservoir system while requiring "no municipal services and adding no children to our school system."
Learning of Holt's statements, Councilwoman Wenke Taule, the council's only Democrat, whose seat is also up for election in November, responded by questioning the mayor's math.
If each of the proposed 39 homes on West Brook Mountain contained two school-age children, "Ringwood would be losing $167,000" per year net after collecting the taxes from those homes, she wrote in an e-mail message. That's because, she argued, "Ringwood pays $9,200 per year to educate one child. ... As open space the land would cost Ringwood virtually nothing."

Jan Barry's e-mail address is barry@northjersey.com
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