More, Please

I like this: a piece by Erin Duffy in this morning’s Times describes the beginnings of an effort – led by Trenton City Assessor Patricia Hice, but apparently begun as the result of inquiries from a private citizen, Dan Dodson – to review the tax-exempt status of the West Ward property known as the Mercer Campus of the Capital Health System. Good!

Property may be excluded from a city’s ratables as long as it is used for purposes that are properly tax-exempt. As long as the Mercer Campus was used as hospital, that worked to excuse the property assessed at $80.7 Million from a tax obligation estimated in Ms. Duffy’s article at just about $3 Million.

While Trenton is looking at a current fiscal year budget shortfall in the range of $4 Million, such a source of revenue looks mighty good.

As long as the property remains vacant and unused – and after the last remaining facility on the site, an Emergency Room, closes in November, the main Campus will be entirely vacant – it will not be used for tax-exempt purposes. So, let’s send them a bill!

It probably won’t be as easy as that. Capital Health is beset with several financial headaches as a partial result of the huge building project it undertook when it left the West Ward to build its huge facility in Hopewell. Assessor Hice isn’t exactly being a psychic when she predicts opposition from Capital Health to her effort to start collecting property taxes: “Obviously there’s going to be some resistance,” she said to the Times.

I’ll bet there will be.

But that shouldn’t deter the City from trying. I am glad to read that North Ward Member Marge Caldwell-Wilson raised the issue with Business Administrator Sam Hutchinson at Tuesday’s Council session. I would like to have heard what Mr. Hutchinson’s response was, and I would also have liked to have heard that the West Ward’s rep Zac Chester took the lead on this issue. But the Times was silent on any reply from the BA or any  comment from other members of Council.

That’s OK. There’s still a lot of time to join in on the effort. For now, thanks to Ms. Hice for starting this effort. And special thanks to Mr. Dodson for taking the initiative to prod the City into action. More of this, Please!!!

Since Capital Health announced that they were abandoning their century-old home in Trenton, the future of the Mercer Campus and its importance to the economic and social health of the Bellevue-Rutherford neighborhood and the whole Ward has been a huge issue. In 2010, the City published a Plan for the neighborhood, paid for in part by Capital Health, that outlined possible development scenarios. The Plan is still on the books; take a look.

Since February 2010, there has been almost zero progress toward any kind of future for the site.  The Mack Administration has abandoned any pretense that it has a development strategy for this, or any other site in the City.

All you have to do is look at this page on the City’s website. Boldly titled, “Request for Proposals for Development,” the page proclaims “The City of Trenton is seeking developers for innovative development projects in the Capital City.  Please click on the RFPs below to access specific details and requirements for each listed city owned property.” But after that encouraging opening, one looks further down the page to read,

There are no requests for proposals for developers at this time.

Oh, but there is a friendly “Thank you for your interest” to send you on your way.

Trenton won’t begin to climb out of its hole unless it can develop new projects and new opportunities for its citizens. Trenton won’t develop any new projects unless it can develop a plum site like the Mercer Campus. The Mercer Campus won’t get developed if it’s being neglected by the Mack Administration. The Mack Administration won’t pay attention because it is distracted by legal problems of its own making and because the Mayor and his team are fundamentally lacking any competence to take a development stance.

So, for now at least, we are kind of stuck. In the meantime, going after some property tax money from the current owner sounds like a real good plan. As Dan Dodson put it, “[T]here’s millions of dollars involved in the taxes on that land and if we can’t stand up to Capital Health for the tax money, what are we doing as a city?”