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Please join Mayor Steve Lonegan for a frank discussion on property taxes

Thanks to your help, Governor McGreevey dropped a plan to raise gasoline taxes by as much as 15 cents per gallon.

Our victory showed the Trenton Establishment that average people like you and me can beat "City Hall" when we stick together and make our voices heard.

Now I'm working on another front and I'd like you to join me next Monday night, January 26th, from 7 to 8:30 pm at the Ramada Conference Center, 195 Route 18 South, in East Brunswick to announce our effort to reduce rapidly escalating property taxes in our state.

On the whole, New Jersey residents paid $17.3 Billion in property taxes last year -- a 7.6 percent increase over the $16.1 Billion paid in 2002. This represents the highest single year increase in a decade. And that's because
total spending increased by 6.5 percent.

Higher spending means higher taxes. And nothing will be done about high taxes until something is done about spending.

Some say that the only way to hold down real estate taxes is to raise other taxes such as sales and income taxes. I reject that view. The problem with taxation in our state is not that state taxes are too low, but that local
governments and school boards spend too much -- as well as our state government in Trenton.

I am proud that in my town of Bogota in Bergen County, our municipal budgets are virtually the same as the day I took over eight years ago. Unfortunately, any savings we have brought taxpayers has been eaten up by profligate spending at the Board of Education.

And while state spending has skyrocketed in those eight years from $15 Billion to nearly $24 Billion today -- a 60 percent increase -- state aid to my town has actually been reduced.

As property taxes rise, driven primarily by school costs, New Jersey residents are left asking whether we are getting what we are paying for. Trenton's monolithic "tax and spend, more money equals better everything" attitude has to stop before it bankrupts our state.

We can control taxes and school costs without diminishing the quality of education our children receive. Please join me on Monday night as we take the tax revolt to a new level. Many of you have written me to ask what else
we can do to fight high taxes in our state. This is your chance. I look forward to seeing you on Monday.