The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1902-07-31
INFAMOUS BUDGET
Creditors Of the City Robbed to Pro
vide Means for Political
Extravaganza.

=, its stockholders. and we should, there
of the Board of Directors of bank to
| fore, not place such burdens upon the
city as would seem extrayagant or un-
warranted, any more than we would, as
| private individuals, place upon ourselves
| unnecessary debts or obligations. The
| city naturally is always debtor and, as
such, the value of its securities are en-
HANGED or deprecated conformably with
the ability to pay its bonds and liabilities
as they come due.
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE ESSENTIAL
The confidence of the investing public
must be maintained to assist us in mar
keting our securities at profitable mar
gins, and, in fact, while we may occas-
ionally deceive our citizen public, we
cannot deceive our creditors, who watch
closely our proceedings and discount our
every questionable action by depreeia-
ton of our bonds. If condition and cir
cumstanees require an outlay of monies
unavoidable it is meet that this expen-
diture should be made and provided for,
as all other expenses of the city are pro-
vided for. the burden of such outlay nat
urally falls upon the taxpayer, unless we
can retrieve in other channels, to Offset
such items, but the necessity for the OBJ
legation and the obligation itself in no
way justifies US in giving the public any
thing but the truth, unvarnished and
plain, and not, by omissions and commits
sions, try to deceive it.
Our bonded debt, about sixteen mil
lions net, is sufficiently large to warrant
us taking into careful consideration any
items that would tend to increase this
amount. To add to this debt unneces-
sarily, or in any way imperil the credit
Of the city, by interfering with the in
tent and purpose of the sinking funds,
would be an infringement upon the rights
of the taxpayer and the public, and as
criminal as the highwayman's course,
who steals your purse.
OUR CREDIT THREATENED.
Since being member of this Board,
/ have made close study of the fnan-
ces Of this city, and waste no idle words
when l say-the tax budget about to be
fixed by this Board is the heaviest ever
imposed upon the people of Jersey City.
Its extravaganza is wholly uncalled for.
In order to meet it and keep the tax rate
at the figure fixed for the present fiscal
year, it will be necessary to increase the
valuations of property over four million
dollars. An attempt has been made to
prepare the public mind for this increase,
by loud proclamations that many proper
ties have been undervalued. If this is
true. the assessments should be correct
ed, but such correction should work de-
crease in the tax rate. Not only is this
budget wholly devoid of economy, but it
is drawn, in matters of omission, ON lines
that are criminally wrong, and calculat-
ed to greatly injure the credit of the
city. It issmade the instrument of di-
rect attack upon the value of the city's
bonded debt, and, for the first time in
nearly thirty years, it is propostd to pay,
from sinking funds sacredly pledged to
the redemption of that debt, the tempo
rary loans that are directed by law to
be provided for in the tax, levy. That
such course is dishonest is apparent,
and if the precedent this day made is
followed, nothing can save the credit of
this municipality.
A STUNNING BLOW.
Under the act of $780, there have been
issued S1,460,000 of bonds. toward the
payment of which there should be an
nually placed in the tax levy the sum of
35,0O0 This item is omitted from the
present budget in order to make room for
$35, 900 of extravaganza. 1t would be
difficult to strike more direct blow at
the city's credit What more pregnant
question can be asked by the holders of
those bonds than why, if $4,000 was
inserted in the tax levy of last year to-
ward the payment of our holdings, do
you, after increasing the valuation Of
property over four million dollars, leave
this item out of this levy?" A statement
that the item will be met by the collec-
tion of assessments (all over ten years
old, and the total amount of which would
not meet the principal of the bonds) is
so apparently false that it will not de-
ceiye single creditor of the city, any
more than it deceiyes the members Of
this Board, who are asserting to the
wrong. This was so plain to the City
Comptroller that he included this item
Of So, 900 in his statemept Of the amount
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