At issue was a 78-acre creekfront property which De Niro purchased for $1.5 million in 1997 and improved considerably. The town assessor valued the property at almost $9 million, the owner at $3.7 million. A judge settled on $5.6 million last June. The owner appealed for $3.7 million. The town spent more than three years and just under $130,000 in litigating the case.
De Niro, who claimed to know nothing of this because his people were the ones who talked to the town’s people, could have continued the litigation, but decided not only to cease and desist but also to reimburse the town for its legal expenses. To do that the wealthy actor may have had to cash a residual check or two. But the offer was much appreciated by a relieved town board.
It seems the town board, under supervisors Zatz and Katz, did not tell town residents how they were running up their legal bills, hiding behind the cloak of “legal action” for three years. With the threshold of pain in Gardiner an estimated $130,000 and faced with even more expenses, the town fathers finally decided to consult taxpayers as to whether to pursue or abandon their case.
Fortunately for all concerned, a “surprised” De Niro stepped in. Apparently, he was too busy filming those I Love the Hudson Valley ads to pay much attention to his upstate home.
After all its time, money and effort, the town would have realized only about ten percent of any settlement. The school district would have gotten six or seven times as much, but would have been stuck with whatever settlement the town negotiated.
Given respective interests, school boards should be more active participants in these all-too-frequent assessment battles. But current law does not permit that.
On the town level, taxpayers have every right to know from the get-go what kinds of monies are being spent on their behalf. The state open meetings law says they can conduct such affairs in secret, but no law says they have to.
Lawyer, lawyer
Old-timers used to tell the apocryphal story about a young lawyer moving to a small town, her prospects bright. There wasn’t another lawyer for miles around. Alas, she starved for years until another lawyer moved to town. Then they both got rich.
Which raises the rhetorical question: can city government have too many lawyers? I think the short answer is yes.
The dispute between Kingston’s Common Council and the city’s mayor over the aldermen wanting an attorney of their own — the city corporation counsel by charter currently handles all legal matters — illustrates one of the downsides of too many cooks in the kitchen.
Some members of the common council sought to add $25,000 to Mayor Gallo’s 2015 budget to hire an attorney to represent the legislative body. They claim, with considerable justification, that Corporation Counsel Andrew Zweben is de facto the mayor’s lawyer. The mayor hired him, and the mayor can fire him at will. For the corporation counsel to side with the legislative branch against the mayor is therefore highly unlikely. In order to achieve some semblance of equal powers in government, aldermen say they need their own counsel. Zweben, who also acts as the mayor’s de facto spokesman, slamming certain aldermen in the press on numerous occasions cannot help but feed into this perception as well.
Aldermen have a point, to a point.
Gallo might order the subservient Zweben to serve the legislature better, something which sounds counterintuitive for this mayor. In the event they differ on legal issues they could retain an arbitrator at fee.
The concern is that another lawyer would only create litigation.