‘Someone say: ‘Stop!’

Asserting that continually rising taxes are “unsustainable” and “someone’s got to say, ‘Stop,’ ” property owners questioned a new reassessment effort during the Borough Council’s Tuesday, Aug. 27 meeting.

Some of the property owners were reacting to letters they had received stating their homes would be among the first batch inspected under the five-year exercise.

Council members had few detailed answers about the reassessment, which is expected to be launched in September. They referred property owner inquiries to Tax Assessor Dawn Guttschall, who was not present at the meeting.

Council President Michael Conahan presided over the session in the absence of Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk. The reassessment and rising taxes comprised most of the questions fielded by Conahan during nearly one hour’s worth of public comments.

Two days later, Conahan notified Inside – Middlesex that Guttschall will attend the council’s Sept. 24 meeting to answer taxpayers’ questions.

On 8/27, several speakers mentioned their taxes had increased in the wake of the 2022 revaluation. They expressed concerns the reassessment would hike their bills again.

Conahan explained that both the revaluation and reassessment are part of an effort to keep Middlesex Borough’s assessed property values current, something that did not occur for decades prior to the reval.

“As previously stated, the borough decided to enter into the annual reassessment program to ensure fair tax bills for all residents,” read a handout available at the meeting. “To elaborate, the borough did not conduct any revaluations for 36+ years, resulting in inequities in taxation and forcing the costly 2022 revaluation, which was mandated by the state in 2017.”

The handout mentions that inspectors and the tax assessor would be involved in the process of affixing new values to properties. Conahan said Guttschall will have the final say. It’s hoped that a gradual readjustment of values over a period of years will head-off the need for a comprehensive, simultaneous revaluation of all properties.

Conahan said the 2022 revaluation cost the borough about $300,000.

Speakers at the meeting, however, were not convinced of the reassessment’s benefits.

Joe DeScenza and Kenneth Griggs Jr., both 2024 Republican council candidates, suggested the reassessment’s start be delayed. They noted the reval occurred not long ago. Although the reval inspections took place in 2022, the new values it set were established in 2023.

Some property owners agreed with the call for a delay. They noted that real estate values are cyclical and prices are currently in an up part of the cycle.

Others questioned the equity involved in the process. They feared that the initial property owners who get inspected this fall could see tax hikes quickly, while others might have a delay in receiving an increase.

Conahan said the neighborhoods inspected each year would be dictated by geography, and that the borough would not be targeting specific property owners. Seventy blocks worth of properties are scheduled to be inspected this fall, he said. The initial inspections will occur in the northeast section of the borough, along the Green Brook border.

The reassessment was not the only tax issue mentioned by officials at the meeting. Borough Administrator Michael LaPlace said a commercial property that straddles the Middlesex/Bound Brook border and is owned by a trucking company has been removed from the tax rolls. It had produced about $35,000 in annual property tax revenue, he said.

According to a media report, Middlesex and Somerset counties split the $3 million cost of buying the two-acre site along the Raritan River, east of the Queens Bridge, due to its historic nature. It was the site for the Battle of Bound Brook in 1777 and will become home to a park.

Today, much of the site is paved and used as a trucking depot, including a historic stone bridge which is listed on the National and New Jersey Registers of Historic Places. The span has three arches, is 26 feet wide and 80 feet in length, and is believed to be relatively intact. The counties plan to uncover and preserve the bridge.

LaPlace said the borough had no input on the counties’ land purchase, which recently had its closing. He said the borough will look into whether there is any way to recoup at least part of the lost tax revenue.

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