By karl vilacoba
Staff Writer
KARL VILACOBA Republican Township Council candidate Tony Matthews (l) protested tax increases and spoke to residents in front of the municipal building last week. Matthews was joined at the demonstration by running mates Michael Thulen and Stephen Acropolis.
BRICK –– Every Thursday summer night at Windward Beach Park is SummerFest. Friday morning at town hall, Brick Republican Party Chairman Allan Cartine declared, was Tax Fest.
A small demonstration was held last week to mark the quarterly due date for property tax payments. As residents shuffled in and out of the Brick municipal building to pay their bills, they were greeted by Republican Township Council candidates and others who said they were fed up with tax increases under the administration of Mayor Joseph Scarpelli and the Democrat-controlled council.
"You can see the unhappy faces on people coming in to pay their tax bills," said Republican council candidate Tony Matthews, holding a "Help Our Seniors" sign. "We’re here to tell them we’re Brick taxpayers and we’re unhappy, too. I believe they’re very happy to know someone does care."
Matthews vowed to review all spending with an eye toward checking the tax rate, if elected.
Demonstrators passed out a bar graph charting the municipal tax rate since 1994. Represented in the color green were the fiscal years 1994-97, when a Republican majority sat on the council. During that period, the municipal tax rate remained flat at 51.4 cents per $100 of assessed value. Today, that rate is 74.9 cents per $100 assessed value.
Currently Stephen Acropolis serves as the lone Republican member of the council. Because Acropolis is one of only seven, Cartine said, his voice is often ignored, and balance needs to be brought back to the council.
"There’s no checks and balances. There’s no one there who can think on their own. You have a mayor who basically dictates to them how to vote," Cartine said.
Brick Democratic Municipal Committee Chairman Michael Blandina wondered if Cartine felt the same way about Ocean County’s government, which had no Democrats in office.
"If he really believes that, he should be lobbying for the same thing with the county freeholders," Blandina said.
Blandina said tax increases under the Democrats were necessary to achieve Brick’s status as the second safest city in America and to purchase open space.
Brick Business Administrator Scott MacFadden dismissed the demonstration as election-year politics and defended the administration’s "prudent fiscal practices." He also spoke of the need for a constitutional convention on tax reform in New Jersey.
What many taxpayers don’t realize, MacFadden said, was that municipal levies account for only about 25 percent of a taxpayer’s bill, while school and county taxes count for the vast majority of it.
"We send out the bill so we get blamed for all of it," MacFadden said. "We do everything we can to keep taxes down, at least the portion we control."