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Councilwoman Letitia James owes the city almost $9,837 in property taxes for her Lafayette Avenue house since April 2008, plus $614 on her water bill — and the lawmaker is blaming the feds!
James, who makes $122,500 as the people’s representative for Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, said she hasn’t paid yet because she’s waiting for her IRS refund check.
“This is not a question of not paying, it’s a question of paying late,” she told The Brooklyn Paper. “We usually pay with our tax refund, which is supposed to come any day now.”
Courier–Life, a sister publication of The Brooklyn Paper, reported James’s tardiness in its Friday edition.
Homeowners can pay property taxes quarterly or yearly. A good portion of her tax bill — $2,153 — was due this week, on April 1.
“Rest assured, it will be taken care of probably by the end of the month,” she told The Brooklyn Paper on Friday.
James isn’t alone in paying late, though she owes significantly more than other public figures.
An exhaustive search by The Brooklyn Paper revealed that Councilwoman Darlene Mealy (D–Williamsburg) owes $842 since October, 2008, on her Herkimer Street residence.
One of Brooklyn’s literary elite has an overdue bill, too. Jonathan Safran Foer — well known to Brooklyn Paper readers as the greatest writer of his generation — owes the Finance Department $0.05 on his Park Slope manse, most likely not enough to trigger any punishment from city officials.
Like other lawmakers caught in an apparent violation, James deflected questions about her finances as irrelevant.
“This is a distraction from the real issues within the district,” said the second-term councilwoman, who faces a reelection challenge from two contenders.
James seized the embarrassing moment to take a swipe at one of her opponents, Delia Hunley-Adossa, who is best known as a supporter of the controversial Atlantic Yards project and founded a non-profit that was funded by Forest City Ratner, the developer of the planned Yards project.
“If I started a not-for-profit, I could take money from [Mayor] Bloomberg and Ratner to pay [my property taxes],” she quipped.
Last May, James ran into deeper trouble when her campaign was fined $5,000 by the Campaign Finance Board for overpaying a staff worker with taxpayer money provided through the city’s public campaign financing.
©2009 Community Newspaper Group
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