Common Sense For New Hampshire

So Pringle’s lawsuit challenging the legality of 2014-01, which he began preparing right after the bond was rejected and was filed September 23, is actually a campaign contribution to the Republicans because of the timing of it.  On the other hand, the letter I received from Doherty yesterday, October 11, “to provide an update” on Belmar’s wonderful fiscal health has nothing at all to do with his campaign.   Don’t tell him I said this, but it looks to me like there’s kind of a double standard on what is considered to be campaign-related.

Anyway, here it is:

Dear Belmar Resident:

I am writing to you to provide an update as to the Borough of Belmar’s finances and fiscal health.  Recently, you received a letter regarding our tax rate and how there has been no increase in the municipal tax rate for the past four years.  Now I want to you to have a clear understand (sic) of our outstanding bond responsibilities.

Our most recent credit rating by Moody’s stated that Belmar was Aa3, or “very strong creditworthiness relative to other U.S. municipalities or tax exempt issuers.”  (That rating was given before Sandy, and, as I wrote at the time, plenty of towns in New Jersey had better ratings than that.)  This rating is better than the State of NJ itself.  (This statement is laughable.  New Jersey has the worst credit rating of any state in the country except for Illinois.  My dog has a better credit rating than New Jersey.)  We have maintained this rating after our recovery from Sandy because we have paid off $14,521,802 in bonds or notes in 2014.  (Actually we’ve maintained it because Moody’s hasn’t done a full report on us since Sandy.  But they did issue a warning  about us early on into our post-storm debt binge.)

Our present Belmar Municipal bonding burden that is the sole responsibility of taxpayers is $6.649 million.  (I’d like to see where he got that number.  I thought it was much higher.  In any case, the key word here is “sole”.  That portion of the debt can not be paid any other way than by taxes.  The utility debts, although we are allowed to use revenues from those utilities to pay them, are still backed with a promise to use tax revenue if necessary.  Make no mistake.  As a taxpayer you are on the hook for all debt in Belmar.)  There is additional bonding that has a revenue stream attached to it from our marina ($11.047 million), beach utility ($7.625 million) and water & sewer utilities ($9.738 million).  (I thought the beach debt was closer to $9 million.  Did he finally put the Buy-a-Board money where it was supposed to go?)  All three of these entities are as financial secure as they ever have been.  (How can he say that?  They all have higher debt than they’re ever had except for when the beach was at $20 million.)  We generated over $3.1 million in revenue at the beach this year, over $2.5 million at the marina in 2013, and over $3.4 million in our water and sewer department in 2013.  (Someone who is supposedly running Belmar “like a business” should understand that revenue doesn’t mean anything.  What matters is how much money is available after expenses which can be used to pay off the bonds.  What we need to see is profit and loss statements, not gross revenues.  The water utility, for example, had to raise rates 15% to make it’s debt payments.)

We look forward to paying down more bonds over the next months and year as additional FEMA money is received.  (According to Chris Smith’s office, FEMA has finished it’s work in Belmar.)  We are in a strong financial position to maintain and improve the credit rating of Belmar.

I am pleased to give you this update on the financial strength of Belmar.  Please contact me at mayor@belmar.com or at 732-681-1300 with any questions you may have.  (Don’t ask them at a Borough Council meeting, where other people might hear us.)

Sincerely,

Matthew J. Doherty

Mayor

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If this is all true than I’m calling on the mayor to take this pledge:  That for the next four years he will resign before he will raise our tax rates.

On the flip side of the mailer is this:

If you read the law, you will see that notification of the availability of the abatement was supposed to be included in our tax bills.  It wasn’t.  Instead it’s on the back of this letter.  But I’m assuming that the letter, addressed to “Our friends at” went out to voters, not property owners.  Isn’t that a problem?