Guest View: Stop the Reassessment!
By The Committee to Stop the Reassessments & Continuous Tax Increases
Once again, on August 15, 2016, at 11:45 a.m. workers from the Department of Public Works were seen removing Stop the Reassessment signs that residents put up on utility poles in front of their homes. Yes that is right, City workers whose salaries are paid for by taxpayer dollars being ordered to remove taxpayer signs!
The Committee to Stop the Reassessments and Continuous Tax Increases contacted the Director of Public Works to ask why taxpayer signs were removed and who ordered their removal. We were told that they were removed because they were on the City right-of-way but the director refused to tell us who ordered their removal. We requested that the signs be returned to the residents which they were.
The taxpayers know that the Stop the Reassessment signs were intentionally singled out for removal as there are numerous types of signs on utility poles throughout the city that were not removed. In fact, they once again removed a Stop the Reassessment sign from one of the utility poles but didn’t remove the other various signs that are on that same pole.
It appears that our elected officials have forgotten that they serve as agents of the peo- ple, not masters of the people. It is time for our elected officials to stop spending their time trying to antagonize the very people to whom the city belongs to and stop taxing us out of homes and businesses. Instead, they should stop their profligate spending of OUR money including the $1 million it will cost to reassess every property in Niagara Falls and spend their time figuring out how to reduce our taxes.
We will continue to put up signs, pass petitions and protest until our elected officials heed the will of the people by stopping the proposed huge tax increase called “reassessments”. A city-wide reassessment initiated by Mayor Paul Dyster and City Council Chairman Andrew Touma on the already highest taxed residents and business owners in the United States has to stop and has to stop now!
