To the Editor:
The November 21 Council Meeting pitted a very defensive and willfully ignorant Mayor against an increasingly knowledgeable and vocal group of Parsippany residents who are fed up with him and his self-serving policies.
The November 21 Council Meeting underscored the unwillingness of the Mayor to provide residents with information other than that provided by John Inglesino, the developers’ highly paid attorney, and Mr. Dan Cassese, Parsippany’s Tax Assessor who admitted in his presentation, much to the Mayor’s discomfort that: “I don’t do PILOTs”.
The November 21 Council meeting asked the question as to why the expertise of the Mayor’s much touted Financial Consultant and the expertise of the lawyer from (the “I know what I don’t know”) Town Attorney, Mr. Michael Lavery’s, firm have not yet been made available to the Council and the public.
The November 21 Council meeting provided insight from Parsippany residents who have extensive professional experience in commercial and residential real estate and who spoke about how attractive Parsippany is to developers and how unnecessary it is to give developers any incentive to capitalize on all that Parsippany has to offer. Why is the Mayor continuing to disparage Parsippany as a good place to do business?
The November 21 Council meeting provided School Board members with the opportunity to advise the voters that the Mayor had failed to provide them with any information and had deliberately “kept them in the dark” The fact that the Mayor has now suddenly announced his willingness to meet and “negotiate” with the School Board begs the question of what the Mayor will be negotiating about. If the PILOTs are not approved then no issue. If the PILOTs are approved then how is the tax-strapped Mayor going to give up any of the discounted taxes that will be paid to the municipality? By the way, let’s not forget that at the last Council meeting, Councilman Paul Carifi pledged that he would personally guarantee that Parsippany schools, libraries, and fire stations would not suffer any adverse effects if the PILOTs passed muster in the Council.
The November 21 Council meeting forced Councilman Neglia to finally speak up and move slightly away from his prior blanket and blind support for Mayor Barberio’s residential PILOT programs. Perhaps Mr. Neglia is learning that what is good for Mayor Barberio and his coterie of campaign contributors is not good for Parsippany.
The November 21 Council meeting offered up a process modification recommendation that would be in the best interests of Parsippany residents. Councilman Musella suggested that the PILOT discussion and decision be tabled until the recently elected Council members joined the Council in five weeks providing new and current members with the time required to fully review the pros and cons of PILOTs. Why the Mayor won’t consider that can only suggest that he fears losing his grip on the Council especially with the likely arrival of Ms. Hernandez.
Finally, the November 21 Council meeting offered Parsippany voters a clear choice between Councilman Justin Musella’s efforts to learn and openly share the truth about PILOTs and Mayor Barberio’s desperate efforts to continue to hide the truth about PILOTs from Parsippany residents.
Bob Crawford
