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Dear Editor:
Once again, the Westfield taxpayer is left holding the bag, but this time nothing is in it.
The recent appraisals on Grand Park came in an astonishingly $120,000,000 below the estimates of worth from Westfield’s Mayor and his administration. It amazingly came in near the level of debt owed on Grand Park.
One might ask after all these years, what really was the return on investment to the taxpayer? The answer is more people, lagging infrastructure, and more costs to the taxpayer, yet the true result of lower taxes never came to fruition. Lower taxes should not be a bait and switch where we raise them 100 percent and then drop them 2 percent and say we gave a tax cut. That is fodder for our buffoons running Washington.
Does anyone find it interesting the value on a park we started in 2011-2012 actually declined in value? Remember the $85 million still owed on the property does not include the interest we paid during construction, the turf, the leases of land we paid, the interest on the debt, nor any repairs. Think of this as buying your home in 2011 for $100,000, hoping the value would increase, and after 11 years you owe $72,000 on your mortgage. Now a dozen people want to buy your home for the debt you owe. Sounds like a solid investment, correct? You enjoyed living there for the last 11 years; that should be enough.
When will we learn government leaders are not the best allocators of taxpayer capital?
Troy Patton
Westfield City Council member