Posted on 03/13/2019 2:43:19 PM PDT by Coleus
Less than two years after Newark sold a piece of property for $1 to its parking authority, city officials are pushing a deal to lease it back.
The total cost for the city: More than $27 million over 30 years.
The Newark Parking Authority plans to develop the land on 43-67 Green Street into a five-story parking deck with administrative offices and retail space. The city would then rent storage space for its municipal court, relocate its finance department there and get 258 parking spots for use during business hours.
But the proposal is befuddling some members of the city council, who say Newark should have kept the prime real estate and developed it on its own. The lot, currently providing parking for city employees, is steps from City Hall and the Prudential Center.
“This was land that we transferred to the parking authority for a dollar and now we are paying the parking authority at $27-a-square-foot a year to rent the building that we could have constructed ourselves and maybe rented space to them,” At-Large Councilman Carlos Gonzalez said at a recent council meeting. “I don’t know why we’re doing it.”
Lawrence Crump, general counsel for the parking authority, did not respond to multiple emails and messages from NJ Advance Media. But, during a council meeting he said the deal offered Newark new offices without the obligation of repaying bonds they would have needed to take to build the structure.
“What this does is allow the city to have the space without the burden of paying back that money,” he said. The lease payments are less than what the city would pay to finance the project, Crump said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
I suspect this is the same town that elected Spartacus as mayor.......
$105K for a part-time job. City council members just gave themselves big raises.
Newark’s City Council agreed to increase their own salaries by more than $30,000 on Tuesday, after voting last month to give the mayor a $50,000 raise.
The measures cap off a series of recent pay boosts for the mayor, his aides and other city administrators.
Council President Mildred Crump will earn $105,000, a 48 percent increase from her $71,000 salary. The other eight members of the council will earn $95,000, up from $64,000.
Be interesting to investigate the financial ties and arrangements of the Newark Parking Authority.
Of course that won’t be happnin’
These type of tax-money-laundering & kickback schemes have become SOP in local politics.
Taxpayers have surrendered their rights & their power.
IT’S OUR MONEY. ANY taxpayer has the right to challenge this crap. All this stuff is PUBLIC RECORD. We can access it & sue to stop it.
Question: If you are a resident of this municipality, why aren’t you and your like-minded colleagues suing?
I am fairly sure I can gue$$...
The lease payments are less than what the city would pay to finance the project,
How is that possible?
I smell kickbacks.
Jersey is loco.
I’m not a resident of that particular municipality.
However, I & my neighbors have already stopped one taxpayer boondoggle, & are in process of stopping a second.
FWIW, we didnt actually need to sue in the 1st instance. The crooks (mayor’s cronies) dropped their plans & hightailed out of town when we examined public records & publicized their shenanigans. In 2nd case, so far $250k already blown before taxpayers knew of plans, but we’ve frozen them in their tracks & they’re unlikely to proceed. We may need to sue to get the taxpayer funds returned.
The issue us our local council keeps raising our taxes & fees while diverting that tax money into private pockets; meanwhile, our streets & water system falling apart. We want it to stop & taxes be used for intended purposes.
MAGA needs to happen at the local level. It can be done.
This stinks like a dead skunk in the middle of the road.
“befuddling”
Not when you realize the goal is to increase spending.
Yes they want to rent it back but only after hundreds of million of dollars in improvement have been made. This has the smell of a good business deal.
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