Senator Gounardes Thanks for Nothing!
Normally at this time, people are thankful for things. I’m not thankful for Andrew Gounardes. Although he is the state senator for the area, he does nothing to help home owners here.
Last January, the seat went from a Republican to a Democrat – shouldn’t we all see a change? All we see more traffic lights and hear about people being fined, but none of that money is going our community. It has quieted the traffic at all.
For Bay Ridge residents, nothing has changed except there are new special interest groups, like bike lane enthusiasts from outside the area. While we see the newly painted lines, hardly anyone is riding on them because they are scared, so many cyclists are on the sidewalk with pedestrians in Bay Ridge. Gounardes knows this and is silent.
We’ve been overtaxed for years. Last Spring, I reached out to Andrew Gounardes to ask him to do something about our property taxes, he told me he had an idea…..and then DID NOTHING.
Senator Gounardes KNOWS the middle class in Bay Ridge have been played by Mayor de Blasio. Mayor de Blasio and his wife own two properties in Park Slope and pay less property tax than we do on one regular size home in Bay Ridge. (See here) We pay over $9000. Mayor de Blasio’s property tax are around $4K.
For years, Mayor de Blasio said the state that had to change the property tax, but Andrew Gounardes confirmed it is the city that must act. Politicians like Councilman Brannan and Jumaane Williams echoed the mayor’s words, even though they knew the Mayor was the holdout. Although the mayor and his cronies are wrong, Gounardes never called them out.
Why is Gounardes silent? Because May0r de Blasio is Gounardes’ buddy and Gounardes’ club, The Bay Ridge Democrats backed Mayor de Blasio’s run for mayor. In May 2018, Corey Johnson and de Blasio formed a property commission which did nothing. It’s 18 months later and Andrew Gounardes hasn’t stepped up to meet with Mayor de Blasio or Corey Johnson. Johnson backed Gounardes’ election, so he can’t say anything here either. Finally Gounardes doesn’t own a home here, so this issue doesn’t concern him. See here for info
This Fall, Senator Gounardes and another NYS senator sat in front of residents at a meeting held at Kingsborough Community College. The two senators said, “We are waiting on Mayor de Blasio to change the property tax.” (There is video of this which I will link up). It was clear that Gounardes didn’t want to hear people objecting to him doing nothing!
Even though we paid our property tax for the year, today we got another bill for $59.00 which includes a small increase for this quarter. The city can’t stop taxing home owners and Mayor de Blasio has no plans to lower the property taxes.
Last Spring, Gounardes was in Albany and when he heard our Community Board voted against bike lanes, he rushed to get a letter out the next day to override the community board (see here). He didn’t even return to Brooklyn to speak with the Community Board. Yet, it’s months later and Andrew Gounardes can’t even write a letter to Mayor de Blasio about Bay Ridge’s property tax.
Gounardes has taken a page out of Nicole Malliotakis’ game of politics. He held a canned food drive. While there is nothing wrong with a canned food drive, the Senator shouldn’t be running events that boy scouts or the community has run (last year Remax held the food drive). Malliotakis holds a toy drive every year. These drives are a politicians way to make it look like the pol is doing something, when in reality he/she doesn’t even need to be in the state. All the politician has to do is put out an empty box to receive the items that residents drop off and then take a picture for the paper!
This community deserves a lot better. Hopefully, someone who owns property will step up to run against Gounardes because Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights needs a leader. We don’t see Gounardes doing anything to help Dyker Heights. We’ve gone so long without a representative who is interested in speaking up for the community. It’s not right that we are stuck with Gounardes as our senator whose running around doing stupid speeches for this group (See here), but not speaking up for his neighbors.
Last week, I ran into a “Brannanite” (a supporter of Councilman Brannan). I stayed clear of her because I didn’t want to hear her complaining. When she saw me, she made a beeline for me and she said, “I had to tell you I had no idea you were being taxed this much. I also didn’t realize Justin and Andrew weren’t doing anything to help.”
Yup, word travels fast in a small community.
Senator Gounardes if you ever read this -> You are the worst. Thanks for sitting in our senate seat and doing nothing to help home owners in this district.
Hugs,
marlene
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