Dear Editor:
While reading Parsippany Focus’ article on May 23rd titled “Parsippany Introduces 2020 Budget” and looking at the pages of the budget, Mayor Soriano is set to increase our taxes in a record amount of over 6%.
To make this even worse, Mr. Soriano is doing this while the COVID-19 pandemic leads to historic job losses an unemployment rate surges to 15.3%. This is according to the NJ Department of Labor & Workforce Development as of today.
During election time, Mr. Soriano criticized other administrations for taking money from the sewer and water surplus in order to balance the budget. But, as I along with other members from our temple read the budget, Mr. Soriano is no different from the previous administrations that he was so vocal against.
It looks like Mr. Soriano is taking AT LEAST $2,100,000 from the sewer surplus and $450,000 from the water surplus. Even with going against what he said about taking surplus money from these accounts during election time, our taxes are set to increase like never before.
What is confusing about this article is that it says the “Township Council” voted to introduce the 2020 Township budget. With all the telephone calls, articles of mail that we received and in-person visits at our homes and at our houses of worship during election time, Mr. dePierro, Carifi, and Mrs. Gragnani all stressed how important it was to elect all three of them to the council otherwise Mr. Soriano was going to raise taxes, let alone over 6%.
We are hoping this is a misprint and that the people who promised us during election time will help protect us and vote against this massive record tax increase especially during a pandemic.
Please keep in mind that this is also at a time where Mr. Soriano is making the members of Lake Parsippany pay an assessment fee for living in the lake area even if you do not use it.
Where is Mr. Peluso, Mr. Valori, and Mr. Barberio during this critical tax hike? They were all, and some still are leaders of our community. Please don’t abandon us now because it’s not an election year. This is the time where every Parsippany resident needs your help.
Since the Council meetings are online and the people cannot appear in person and voice their frustration, we are recommending exactly what each of these Council people did and do to all of us during election time. So, please either email them, call the respective telephone numbers that were found on the internet or mail them a letter and ask them to explain why and how they can do this to us during unprecedented times.
Thank you.
1) Council President Mr. Mike dePierro, 5 Fernwood Place Parsippany, NJ 07054. 973-263-3333
2) Council Vice President Mrs. Loretta Gragnani, 11 Rhoda Ter., Parsippany NJ, 07054. 973-335-8796
3) Councilman Paul Carifi Jr., 35 Robin Hood Road, Morris Plains, NJ 07950. 973-993-9117
4) Councilwoman Janice McCarthy, 67 Jaime Court, Morris Plains, NJ 07950.
973-625-3916
5) Councilwoman Emily Peterson, 26 Old Parsippany Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054. 718-501-3250
6) Mayor Michael Soriano, 8 Norman Avenue, Lake Hiawatha, NJ 07034. 973-541-9983
Riddhi Shah
Rajendra Patel
Lake Parsippany Residents
