Stratton AND McCarthy were so busy focusing on their rich cronies downtown that they never looked right across the street from city hall to see what has happening.  And now, the taxpayers are going to have to fork over money thanks to these two mayors failing to their job.


Excerpts from the gazette story from a few days ago:

Quoted Text

The stretch of Jay Street across from City Hall has seen better days.
  
A more prominent building on that block — the Seneca Building at 118-120 Jay St. — showed the effect of years of neglect.

...

“There was a woman that owned it and was basically running it as a very low-end residential location,” Smith said. “There were bed bugs in there and cockroaches. It was crawling with vermin and bed bugs. People left all of their things there. There were still pots on the stove.”

DIRECTLY across the street from city hall but the former mayor full of BS and the current McCarthy and the city were totally clueless as to the condition of the buildings, despite the FACT that they PERSONALLY SAW that building each and every day.  The city failed to make them adhere to city codes!  City goes after financially struggling long time taxpaying homeowners for insignificant little things like house numbers of the wrong size, but the city totally ignored code violations at these buildings on Jay St (including the ones that had the fire.

The previous owner--referenced by Mr Smith--had purchased the building in October 2005.  And the FACT that Mr. Smith (the new owner) explained the poor condition of the building and that there was vermin and bed bugs in rental units, well, where was the city in conducting the mandated inspections?   What about rental certificates?  Where are the records?  Stratton and McCarthy were so focused on catering to their billionaire crony Galesi that they failed to do their job, failed to have their departments do the jobs that the taxpayers paid them to do.

You might think that my mentioning how McCarthy and his former co-workers at the county are keeping the code inspection report about 104 Jay St a big secret, is irrelevant to the Seneca building story, well, it IS relevant.   The former owner of the Seneca Building is the SAME person who previously owned 104 Jay St !!!!!   How about that for a fact!  Does the FACT that McCarthy could personally see all those buildings EACH AND EVERY DAY and the obviously POOR condition, as well as his building inspector personally seeing these buildings each and every day as well, yet these two incompetents didn't do anything about citing these properties for code violations, yet McCarthy and his building inspection team go on a road trip around the city looking for house numbers of the wrong size!

Quoted Text

Noah Smith of CPR Property Group in Queens purchased the property in July 2014
  
While Smith said the building  was being advertised online “at a very high price,” he was able to negotiate it down to $160,000. The condition of the building was very poor at first look, he said.

McCarthy said recently that there was no need for a citywide reassessment, that assessments were fair and proper.  The 2013 assessment roll had the assessment value of the Seneca Building as $590,800 meaning that the city was claiming it would sell for $547,037.  The 2014 assessment roll had the assessment value of the building as $375,000 meaning that the city claimed it would sell for $304,878.  As there is no record of a tax certiorari, then the previous owner had to have gone to the board of assessment – McCarthy’s tax delinquent political crony Mary D, and the rest of the Mccarthy appointed board members would have granted a reduction in assessment – the FACT that they lowered the assessment only to $375,00 proves the board’s TOTAL INCOMPENTENCE as the building CLEARLY was not worth what the McCarthy political appointees on the board claimed it was worth.

Quoted Text

“They have presented a concept to us and we haven’t finalized an agreement with them on the facade yet,” Metroplex Chairman Ray Gillen said. “It’s an important location. We like the fact that it’s being thoroughly renovated in a key location.”

Here we go, city FAILED to do it's job, FAILED to go after the property owners, allowed buildings to fall into disrepair and now the taxpayers have to foot some of the bill.

Quoted Text

Smith said the city’s Building Department has been “very  tough” since the Jay Street fire nine months ago.   The Seneca Building has a new sprinkler system and fire alarm system.

Interesting.  "... very tough since the ... fire...."    Obviously the city's building department is running scared, they obviously know that they have not been doing their job

Yep, the McCarthy was eliminating ESSENTIAL city services---actually violating city law by FAILING to do inspections--but increasing the taxes on the homeowners (to make the homeowners pay the taxes of McCarthy's rich political cronies.