01/16/2008
Residents Decry Taxes In Gordon Heights FD
By:Karen Forman
Residents in the Gordon Heights Fire District say that while the Gordon Heights community does not have its own zip code, they are "on the map" for having the highest fire district taxes in the town of Brookhaven, and possibly the nation. While some have been pushing for redevelopment of the area, other locals say the fire district taxes must first be addressed.
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"We need to get these fire taxes in line before we can move forward with any revitalization," said Rosalie Hanson, a resident of the GHFD who has a Medford zip code. "These taxes are detrimental to any revitalization efforts. We're a low- to middle-income community. We moved here for affordable houses. We have the affordable houses but we can't afford the taxes." Hanson noted that there was one commercial property on Gray Avenue, in Medford, which "has been abandoned for over 20 years. It's in the GHFD. No one wants to have a store here. They can't afford the fire taxes."
The average fire district in the town of Brookhaven encompasses 10 miles, has 4,000 residents and has 120 pieces of commercial property, according to documents obtained by Hanson from Brookhaven Town. On average, Brookhaven residents pay an annual fire district tax of $15 per $100 of assessed home value. In contrast, the GHFD is only 1.7 miles, has 800 residents and zero commercial properties, and its residents pay an average of $60 per $100 of assessed home value. The national average is $11 per $100 of assessed home value, according to the New York State Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness.
As an example of these disparities, she cited the taxes being paid by the owners of properties that are located on the same street but divided by fire district boundary lines. All these figures are based on the 2007 tax numbers that Hanson obtained from the town of Brookhaven. A homeowner whose property is on Granny Road and has an assessed value of $2,700 pays approximately $1,716 in GHFD taxes. However, a homeowner whose property is across the street on Granny Road but in the Medford FD, with the same assessment, pays about $436 in fire district taxes.
The same gap can be found at a home on Saddlebrook Court. While homeowners whose property has an assessed value of $2,800 pay approximately $1,780 in taxes to the GHFD, a homeowner across the street with the same assessment pays about $695 into the Middle Island FD. On Greentree Drive, a home with an assessed value of $3,800 assessed value must pay approximately $2,416 to the GHFD, while, across the street on Greentree, a household is paying about $757 into the Yaphank FD.
"The disparity is too great to ignore," Hanson said. When those in the GHFD can't afford their homes and are forced to sell, no one wants to buy the houses because of the high fire taxes. This forces the owners to sell their homes at a lesser value or just abandon them, and Hanson said this opens the door to what she believes are undesirable elements - including sober homes and sex offenders.
"We're on the map now for having the most sex offenders in the nation," Hanson said. "We have at least 65 sex offenders in Gordon Heights right now."
"We can't afford to stay and we can't afford to leave," noted Gina Previte, who also has a Medford zip code but is within the boundaries of the GHFD. "I just lost my job in November and I'm scared to death. I'm at the mercy of this tiny little [fire] district. People who bought [homes] here feel stuck. There are houses for sale here for a year and a half."
But GHFD Commissioner James Kelly argues that this money is needed to run the fire district. "I've lived here for 32 years," he noted. "I pay $2,700 in fire taxes. It's the way it is. This is old news. I'm surprised we're still talking about this issue ... This is just a few people trying to bring us down."
Both Previte and Hanson also took issue with some comments that have been made by Tawaun Whitty, president of the Greater Gordon Heights Civic Association. As previously reported in Suffolk Life, Whitty has been aiming to make the community a walkable downtown area through redevelopment and revitalization efforts. But none of this can be done before fire district taxes are addressed, according to Previte and Hanson.
"Tawaun Whitty ... tried to speak for the district, but she's not in the fire district," Previte noted. "She's in the Coram FD. Tawaun is well intentioned but she has a lack of understanding of the situation. There are people here on a fixed income, people with two jobs ... The fire department taxes are a luxury that we just can't afford. People buy a home and find out too late that it's part of the GHFD."
Hanson and Previte added that the district has insufficient land left for future development and that "businesses won't build here if they have to pay these high fire taxes."
With the GHFD carrying an annual budget of $1.5 million, the big question, Hanson said, is where all those tax dollars are going.
"That's $1.5 million for 1.7 square miles and 800 families," Hanson stated, citing numbers she obtained from Brookhaven Town. "Their [administrative] salaries add up to over $500,000. They throw a $35,000 dinner every year. It's insensitive and insulting. Every penny they spend is coming out of our pockets. Their budget is climbing steadily every year. From 1998 to 2005, their budget doubled. It went up $800,000 in eight years. We're too few to bear the burden of the GHFD."
The GHFD had one of the smallest call volumes on the Island, with only 391 "in-district" calls in 2006, and 83.2% of those calls were related to Emergency Medical Services, according to records Hanson obtained from the Suffolk County Department of Fire Rescue and Emergency Services.
However, Gordon Heights Fire Chief Erton Rudder contends that the fire district is providing a vital service, and is doing a good job. "I'm the operational guy," he said. "I don't deal with the numbers but I know that we responded to approximately 700 calls last year for fire and EMS. That includes helping out the surrounding districts at their fires. Low numbers indicate that the people are practicing good fire prevention. We have been getting out there and educating the public. Our response times are so good because we don't respond to the number of fires that other districts have to ... That means we're going to get to them faster. I don't think anyone's questioning our service."
But at least one local official is looking into residents' concerns. Brookhaven Town Fourth District Councilwoman Connie Kepert requested an audit from New York State "about a year and a half ago to be sure that the fire department is doing everything correctly, budget-wise," she said. "The findings are forthcoming at the end of January. This way we can make sure everything's fiscally sound."
While he would not, over the phone, confirm or deny the figures Hanson cited, Kelly said the GHFD is operating efficiently. "We've been audited. We're clean," he said. "We're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And we're going to continue to do what we have to do to support our community. We have one of the lowest budgets and some of the best service in the town of Brookhaven. These firefighters would give their lives to save yours. These are good, hard-working unpaid volunteers. We deserve more than what a few people are saying."
While Hanson is critical of the fire district, she stated that there is a difference between this entity - which is a financial institution run by the five elected fire commissioners - and those who serve in the fire department as volunteers. "We have nothing against the fire department," she said, adding that she believes the members of the Gordon Heights Fire Department are well-trained, competent volunteers. "The problem is that the district tax base is too small for the community to continue to support it." The solution, she said, is to dissolve the fire district.
"The firefighters need to hear from the community that their hard work and dedication is appreciated, not that they need to be shut down," Kelly contended. "We need to find ways together to bring down the high costs of living here."
Concurring with Kelly, Whitty noted that other fire districts might have trouble carrying more households. "They think there's no solution but dissolution," Whitty noted. "But the other fire districts can't just pick us up. Coram, where I live, can't handle the volume of calls they already have ... The GHFD has one of the fastest response times because they are right here. These people say that they didn't know they were moving into the Gordon Heights Fire District. They should have checked into that before they moved ... This is just 20% of the people making 80% of the noise."
Disagreeing with Whitty's assessment, Hanson and Previte cited a petition, claiming that 72% of the eligible voters signed the petition to dissolve the GHFD and want to merge their homes and be serviced by a surrounding fire district, "perhaps the one in their zip code." They submitted their petition to the town of Brookhaven on August 22, 2006, but it was dismissed because of what Hanson and Previte claim were "minor technical imperfections."
"[The petition was] legally insufficient," Kepert explained. "Unfortunately, they didn't have any legal advice and they used a form that was the wrong form for the action. If we had accepted the petition, we would have been doing something illegal. I know they put a lot of effort into it, but the town board had to reject it."
While Hanson said that they would like to re-do the petition, they don't have the money for lawyers and are hoping the state can help. Hanson went and testified before the New York State Commission on Local Government, Efficiency and Competitiveness in July of 2007.
"It's the hand that we've been dealt," Rudder said of the fire district taxes, adding that he has been "paying the fire taxes for 10 years. We don't have any commercial properties to offset the taxes. We could have benefited from having the Middle Country Road stores in our district but that's not the way the lines were drawn. We've been around for 60 years. We have an excellent record and service times, one of the best out there. We've been looking into grants to help relieve the taxpayers' burden. Councilwoman Connie Kepert and [Suffolk County] Legislator Kate Browning (WF-Shirley) have gotten us some grants in the past and we're putting the funding to good use. Our people deserve the best. You can't put a price tag on saving people's lives. Taking the fire department away would be a reduction in service."
Kepert agrees. "I would prefer not to dissolve the fire district," she said. "Gordon Heights's only real legal boundary is the fire district. My goal is to try to save the fire district and reduce the taxes. Once we get the results of the audit, we can move on and try to reduce taxes through grants. I've spoken with [New York State] Senator [Ken] LaValle (R-Selden) and all the other representatives of the Gordon Heights area. I think we can try to reduce costs through grants. I would like to try that before even discussing dissolution."
©Suffolk Life Newspapers 2008
