The City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget for the Special Improvement District (SID) at its regular meeting on Tuesday (not Oct. 5, as originally reported when the governing body introduced the plan).
The SID budget proposes to raise $131,565.94 in taxes, based on a rate of $3.34 per $100 of assessed value on about 138 downtown properties. The parcels have a total assessed value of $39.391 million.
About 31 individual lots pay at least $1,000 in SID taxes, and among those, at least eight properties would pay at least $4,000:
* Carriage City Properties, $10,923.13 [$8,192.35 for hotel + $2,730.78 for retail space]
*RSI Bank, 1500 Irving St., $9,671.97
* SDI Technologies, 1299 Main St., $7,278.53
* Rahway Office Center c/o Basad Realty Management, $6,220.08
* Raw Realty, 123 E. Milton Ave., $4,025.37
* MM Rahway Associates, 1537 Main St., $4,016.02
* The Center Circle, 1255 Main St., $4,008
This past spring, the City Council shifted the taxes collected through the Special Improvement District from the Rahway Center Partnership to the Arts District. (Contrary to some public perception, however, the Partnership has not dissolved but just no longer has any paid staff.)
The New Jersey Hot Dog Tour earlier this month included a stop at Rahway Grill on East Cherry Street, where The Star-Ledger/nj.com called it “old-timey…with its screen door, booths, swivel stools, coat racks and Rhapsody II Stereophonic jukebox.” Apparently, their chili was a big hit with the tour.
Check out how the Rahway Grill did in our polls for favorite burger and favorite breakfast place.
I'm sharing this.Any idea why the date change?
SO I heard the Mayor declined to show up for the meeting?
Michelle, Sorry for the delayed reply, been out of town or under the weather since last week. Re: date change. Not sure if it was a change, it might have been either a typo on the City Council agenda or me simply misreading the date on a previous agenda. I'll post about the SID budget this week if I can; not much to report though so I might not get to it until next week. No one from the public spoke and there was no comment from council. As routine as any ordinance. I'm not sure if the mayor "declined to show up for the meeting," but the mayor doesn't usually attend City Council meetings. The administrator is there representing the administration at each meeting. I can't recall many Council meetings, other than reorganization in January, that the mayor attends.
Good luck getting any money out of Carriage City or Silcon. Don't they still owe the City hundreds of thousands of dollars in other taxes and payments?Or maybe the City will roll over on this SID tax and "settle" with them for less than half the correct amount, like they did on the other amounts owed.