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Public misled

by Brigantine

As one of the more than 800 taxpayers in Brigantine appealing a property assessment, I want to express my appreciation for the June 23 article, "Property owners line up to fight for lower assessments."

At the last Brigantine City Council meeting, in a rebuke of those who appealed and of anyone who believes the people should be informed about their rights, Mayor Philip Guenther used the phrase, "to protect Brigantine's ratable base" to describe the city's role in the appeal process. The mayor's role, shared with the other council members and the administration, is to "hold the line" and be the protector.

This line must be held against taxpayers who refuse to accept quietly their roles as those who pay and who dare to exercise their right to appeal. By so doing, they threaten to reduce the flow of revenue to City Hall it considers adequate to pay for all its expenditures.

Appealing is serious business. This right is there for every taxpayer to exercise when he or she believes the system isn't fair and correct. The burden of proof is on the taxpayers. The law gives the legal advantage to the government. Appeals are a form of checks and balances.

Those who do choose to appeal should not be demonized as victimizing our local government and their neighbors.

Council's strategy of misleading the people is especially egregious. By distorting the purpose of appeals- which is to correct unfair, excessive assessments resulting in unfair, excessive taxation - it attempts to pit neighbor against neighbor, those who appeal against those who don't.

"Protecting the ratable base" does not supersede maintaining the integrity of our system of equitable assessments as the foundation for determining property taxes. No taxpayer has an obligation to pay more than his or her fair share of property taxes based on a fair assessment.

ANNE H. PHILLIPS

Brigantine

Jackson's death

a sad day, indeed

I watched all the coverage of the death of the so-called King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and thought of how sad that the day had never come when he was convicted of numerous cases of child molestation thanks to paying the victims' families with an unknown monetary settlemant.

That being said, I'm far from a Michael Jackson hater - just a person who finds it to be very sad that all the media glory surrounds Jackson, rather than the pain of the victims who didn't have a chance in Neverland.

CHET THORNBERRY

Little Egg Harbor Township

Column right about

Arab anti-Semitism

The June 17 column by Richard Cohen, "Arab anti-Semitism makes peace hard," deserves to be required reading for all of us.

In his first paragraph, Cohen jumps past the incident at the Holocaust Memorial Museum and launches right into the overriding subject of anti-Semitism. He states that "vast parts of the Islamic world ... deny the Holocaust, but embrace the thinking that made it possible." A remarkably true and very depressing observation.

The Middle East has saturated its thinking by absorbing all the anti-Semitic diatribes that have been circulating since czarist times and added some new ones, especially hatred for the Jewish state, Israel. These views are often expressed, widely accepted and presented without fear of condemnation in the Arab world. Cohen pointed out that anti-Semitism has been around for nearly 2000 years with predictable results.

Cohen concluded with a statement similar to letters I sent to The Press about hatred of Israel being part of the Arab school curriculum. Cohen said it better: "If Arab leaders do not attempt to rebut and eliminate the Jew-hatred that is poisoning their societies, they will find that the peace that most of them want will not be possible." How true.

PAUL SCHWAB

Margate

2 comments:

• Firebird7478 (55) posts 11:39 am

  If there is a more ignorant letter filled with misinformation and selective cherry picking of the facts, which I'm sure he believes are one-sided, it is Paul Schwab's. Never mind the thousands of Palestinians that are being starved to death at the hands of the Israelis. Yeah, that's bringing so much love from the Arab world, that it poses the question, "What's to love?" To all the Jews who want to keep propping up Israel as the perpetual victim of hatred, I suggest you go live there. After all, you ARE a dual citizen.

• todfiat (0) posts 9:08 am

  Plenty of time now - eternity, actually - for Michael Jackson, he/she, to atone for his/her sexual depredations and bottomless narcicissm. It can't be EZ to moonwalk and tap dance across those hot coals in Purgatory, can it? It must be fiendishly difficult to keep his little rubber nose affixed to his freaky face in those hi temps!

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