This is just more proof that the metroplex, savage and stratton have failed schenectady miserably. Over a decade ago, the plex promised lower taxes and good jobs in return for our tax dollar. FAIL!

Now, because of that failure, they are going after the non profits for money?? This is solid proof that the plex, savage, gillen and stratton have GOT TO GO!!

To tell ya the truth....if I were a non profit, I'd tell them to go pound salt! Tax all of the so called new businesses that feathered their beds with taxpayer's money. Villa Italia, Marcellas, Paul Mitchell and the list goes on.

AND MVP is a non profit?????? That is the biggest joke yet on schenectadians!!!

NOPE....I wouldn't pay a dime if I was a non profit. Tax the tax exempt businesses!! The taxpayers already paid for these businesses to relocate!!! It is all bullcrap!

One would have to be completely clueless not to recognize the positive things that a church or synagogue does for neighborhood.  The very presence of houses of worship uplift a community.   The spiritual and emotional benefit of our presence is incalculable.   We are involved in neighborhood associations We provide services and/or donate funds to assist other nfp's provide needed services.   We maintain our property --- and in the case of a beautiful church on Crane Street Hill we even cut the grass on city owned property and keep the sidewalk clean.

Most of the churches in the city belong to SICM and through cash donations and material donations (clothes, food, tetc) and volunteer labor support the many services that that organization provides including its food pantry.  Also, he Church of Saint Luke operates a food pantry.    

The Church of Saint Adalbert raised a few thousand dollars in December and donated it to other social service NFP's in the city.   We do more throughout the year -- but that is just one example.  

No one is saying the churches are bad.....point being that with all the welfare the churches dont seem to be making a dent in 'moving folks along'....
the churches are just another bandaide covering a punctured artery....and as the folks leave the city/county the churches are closing.....and the
artery keeps spouting.....

the only folks that seem to be coming here are the vampires to lap up all the hemmorhaging blood...

I know that when St Lukes did the food for the hungry at Thanksgiving, THEY were the ones that paid for the potholes to be filled in at the gates on ODell.  Those holes were big enough to bury a car.  And when it rained, you couldnt see them because the whole area would flood out and cars would attempt to go through it and whack the undersides of their cars.  I dont think that the church should have been the ones to FINALLY do something about it.  I think that should have been the city's responsibility.  

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

One would have to be completely clueless not to recognize the positive things that a church or synagogue does for neighborhood.  The very presence of houses of worship uplift a community.   The spiritual and emotional benefit of our presence is incalculable.   We are involved in neighborhood associations We provide services and/or donate funds to assist other nfp's provide needed services.   We maintain our property --- and in the case of a beautiful church on Crane Street Hill we even cut the grass on city owned property and keep the sidewalk clean.

Most of the churches in the city belong to SICM and through cash donations and material donations (clothes, food, tetc) and volunteer labor support the many services that that organization provides including its food pantry.  Also, he Church of Saint Luke operates a food pantry.    

The Church of Saint Adalbert raised a few thousand dollars in December and donated it to other social service NFP's in the city.   We do more throughout the year -- but that is just one example.  

I think the question to you was how the churches STABILIZE the neighborhoods.  You don't have to explain how they provide free services.

Explain what has happened to the property values.  Did the presence of that other beautiful church on Eastern Ave stabilize that neighborhood?   Heck NO, Crime rose dramatically and all the owner occupants bailed out of that neighborhood.  Ditto Mt Pleasant.  Stabilizing a neigbhorhood means to keep the neighborhood from becoming crime ridden, prevent good people from moving out, etc.  So explain HOW St. Adalberts has prevented crime from coming into the neigbhborhood.  Explain how it kept MP a safe place for children to play outside.  Explain HOW it kept property value from falling, etc.

DVR....no one is disputing the fact that churches, as schools, uphold a community. The point is how the city has the ba!!s to ask these non profits to pay taxes/money when businesses aren't paying any!! Most would agree with you that these non profits ARE helping the community. But are the businesses helping when they don't pay their taxes? Leaving the residents to shoulder the entire cost to support city government? It can't be done!! And schenectady is proof of that.

To MC1's point, the churches can NOT possibly correct the gross neglect displayed by the city leaders. Over spending, patronage jobs, mismanaged metroplex, a failing school system, a corrupt police dept and the list goes on. The churches are hurting just like the residents....and the government doesn't care since they had their beds feathered by the businesses that pay no taxes at all!!

Quoted from bumblethru

DVR....no one is disputing the fact that churches, as schools, uphold a community. The point is how the city has the ba!!s to ask these non profits to pay taxes/money when businesses aren't paying any!! Most would agree with you that these non profits ARE helping the community. But are the businesses helping when they don't pay their taxes? Leaving the residents to shoulder the entire cost to support city government? It can't be done!! And schenectady is proof of that.

To MC1's point, the churches can NOT possibly correct the gross neglect displayed by the city leaders. Over spending, patronage jobs, mismanaged metroplex, a failing school system, a corrupt police dept and the list goes on. The churches are hurting just like the residents....and the government doesn't care since they had their beds feathered by the businesses that pay no taxes at all!!

MC questioned the benefit of churches to the city.   So someone had to set him-her straight.

I was also trying to point out that my parish doesn't charge the city for the maintenance work that we do
on city-owned property at the bottom of Crane Street Hill -- if we did not take care of it .. it would be overgrown with weeds and brush  ... adn we take pride in keeping the whole stretch - including the sidewalk and the street closest to the curb from the bottom of the hill up to Yorkston Street clean.    

I should also add -- that when the Daily Garbage -- I mean Daily Gazette ran a story a few years ago about trash being dumped off the end of Yorkston Street --- that rag had the nerve to imply that the garbage wasbeing dumped from church property  -- That was not the case ... the side of the hill along I-890 from the steps (actually including the steps from Lansing Street) to Norwood Avenue actually belongs to the city --- it technically is part of Pleasant Valley Park ... so is the property at the end of Yorkston  Street and the other little side street off of Lansing St.     People dump garbage there -- the city does nothing to stop it or clean it up --- the church and the neighborhood association have tried to clean it up over the years -- but it is a never ending job.     We (at the Church of Saint Adalbert) took great umbrage at being blamed for the garbageon property that isn't even ours .. which in fact belongs to the city and that the city does nothing to clean up.    The city editor of the Daily Garbage couldn't have cared less when he was contacted to make a correctionand the Daily Garbage later promoted him to Managing Editor .. so that says something for that paper.

That's typical at the Gazetto. The only time they print a correction is to reinforce some arse backwards editorial. When are you going to say something about Denise Brucker's idiotic comments? She says that St Adalbert's should pay a tax for renting out space to the City School District. The church is tax exempt the school is tax exempt put them together and TAX THEM ALL? She should retract her moronic comments or resign.

      So far the silence from the left is deafening. Forget about other posters when are you going to talk about the idiotic remarks from DEMS McCarthy and Brucker? They want to tax all religious institutions because they can't budget. If these were REPS you would be all in their kool aid.

Quoted from benny salami

That's typical at the Gazetto. The only time they print a correction is to reinforce some arse backwards editorial. When are you going to say something about Denise Brucker's idiotic comments? She says that St Adalbert's should pay a tax for renting out space to the City School District. The church is tax exempt the school is tax exempt put them together and TAX THEM ALL? She should retract her moronic comments or resign.

      So far the silence from the left is deafening. Forget about other posters when are you going to talk about the idiotic remarks from DEMS McCarthy and Brucker? They want to tax all religious institutions because they can't budget. If these were REPS you would be all in their kool aid.

I am not being silent on the issue ... and you folks consider me "left".   I have been supportive of the Mayor and the City Council in regards to their projects and concerns --- but when you fire a cannon across the bow of my parish .... all bets are off.    I will be carefully looking at who the GOP runs for city offices in 2011.
  
The old school building remains exempt from the property tax because it was used since 1917 as a parochial elementary school  (until 1985), as classrooms for our religious education program and a social center (until 200 and, most recently, as an elementary school by the city school district.     I don't see how they can legally take away that property tax exemption .. so I am sure if they try .. we will fight it in the courts.

When the lease runs out in 2013, we will have to evaluate how to use the building.   We do need additional parking spaces for the church -- so if the city insists on taxing the building -- we may just have to do what GE did and tear it down and replace it with a parking lot.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

I am not being silent on the issue ... and you folks consider me "left".   I have been supportive of the Mayor and the City Council in regards to their projects and concerns --- but when you fire a cannon across the bow of my parish .... all bets are off.    I will be carefully looking at who the GOP runs for city offices in 2011.

That's the problem with Mr. Sanders, Mr. Plante and you. You have all been way too supportive. Finally the chickens have come home to roost. Ms. Brucker's remarks are disgusting especially coming after that nit wit letter from the Mayor. Wake up-no one is giving you anything.

     I was at a recent meeting with many nonprofit leaders. They were all laughing at this Mayor and his tin cup appeal. Everyone is tapped out. Either fair tax those for profits on the miracle two blocks or slash spending.

Quoted from benny salami

That's the problem with Mr. Sanders, Mr. Plante and you. You have all been way too supportive. Finally the chickens have come home to roost. Ms. Brucker's remarks are disgusting especially coming after that nit wit letter from the Mayor. Wake up-no one is giving you anything.

     I was at a recent meeting with many nonprofit leaders. They were all laughing at this Mayor and his tin cup appeal. Everyone is tapped out. Either fair tax those for profits on the miracle two blocks or slash spending.

I still believe that Schenectady is better off today than it was under the previous GOP administration -- but I
am not afraid to stand up and speak against particular proposals  -- such as closing the pools and, now this, .. about taxing churches.

Fact of the matter is, Schenectady is simply getting worse and worse. High crime, poor schools, thousands of welfare cases (and I'll bet LOTS of fraud) and the County & City spent $10 million dollars in taxpayer money for downtown businesses which give nothing back to the City.

Now, DV's argument all along has been that these tax exempt businesses bring sales tax to the area...unfortunately all they do is pad their own pockets with millions of free profits at the Schenectady taxpayers expense.

If Schenectady was better off than it was years ago, the tax base wouldn't be triple that of surrounding Counties and churches wouldn't be at risk for 'donating' to the City (in my opinion, this is the lowest form of extortion their is) and we wouldn't be having this conversation.  

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

I still believe that Schenectady is better off today than it was under the previous GOP administration -- but I
am not afraid to stand up and speak against particular proposals  -- such as closing the pools and, now this, .. about taxing churches.

You fail to see that it is the mismanagement of city government by stratton, savage and gillen that have created this mess for the non-profits.

The city takes taxpayer's money and gives it to businesses to relocate to schenectady.
The city gives the businesses a tax exempt status that falls directly on the shoulders of the residential taxpayers.
The city taxes the residents to a breaking point.
The city, because they have failed at taxing businesses fairly, is now looking to the non-profits to pick up the slack because that's all they have left in the cookie jar.

Don't you get it? Do you really think that stratton could give two sh!ts about your church while he's flying on Air Force One? Do you really think that Savage and Gillen give two sh!ts about your church while they are getting their beds feathered by their 'select few'?

They expect your church, and every other non profit, to pick up the slack from the businesses that are slacking on paying their own taxes!! Thanks to stratton, savage and gillen.

Get it yet? You should be p!ssed at the whole lot of them!

Understand PLEX is just about maxed out.   $5 mill. or so of 50 mill. left.    May be asking for 25 mill. more.   More than likely reason-to keep "it going",in too deep now to reverse course and let what's been done to regress in decay.   Sherman,er, PLEX continues it's march to Atlanta,er Western Gateway Bridge.    If overage on County Home materializes, will PLEX pick up the tab?   Just asking.   Please correct any inaccuracies.    Are welcome.

And in this corner: The coalition team of Homeowners/non-profits vs.For-profit tax exemptors.   No low blows!