Money Talks, Bullshit Walks!

01.17.14

City overrules its own assessors and lower Google's real estate taxes by $21 million

Google will save as much as $21 million after the city overruled its own assessors and lowered the tech giant's real estate tax

HO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Google, one of the country’s richest companies, shelled out a staggering $1.8 billion in December 2010 for its New York City headquarters — the 17-story former Port Authority building that takes up an entire block in Chelsea’s red-hot real estate market.

City Finance Department brass overruled their own property assessors twice during the past two years to lower Internet giant Google’s real estate taxes by as much as $21 million, the Daily News has learned.

Google, one of the country’s richest companies, shelled out a staggering $1.8 billion in December 2010 for its New York City headquarters — the 17-story former Port Authority building that takes up an entire block in Chelsea’s red-hot real estate market.

But three veteran Finance Department assessors have claimed “highly unusual” interventions in the Google assessment process by their supervisors. Those interventions, they say, slowed the rise in the building’s official market value and reduced the company’s tax bite.

In early 2012, they say, an assistant commissioner ordered a reduction in his agency’s $816 million appraisal for the building, even though Google had not even filed a formal objection.

The city releases tentative property assessments each January. By law, those for commercial buildings are based on rental income and expenses, not sales price, and owners have until March 1 to file objections.

But on Feb. 24, 2012, the Finance Department suddenly cut the Google assessment to $628 million. That “adjustment” was done “per [assistant commissioner Timothy] Sheares,” according to a printout of the department’s computer log obtained by The News. The change reduced Google’s tax by about $8.7 million.

“This agency almost never reverses an appraisal before an owner objects,” said one assessor who asked not to be identified.

The department merely corrected “a mistake” in its original appraisal of the building, spokesman Owen Stone countered.

Google had filed only a partial income and expenses report for the building during its first year of ownership, Stone said, so the agency used a previous report from the former owner instead.

Taconic Management’s Peter Febo, who manages the building for Google, likewise rejected any claims of special treatment.

“It is a matter of public record” that the city “corrected” its error before Google completed filing an appeal, Febo said.

CRAIG WARGA/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

At Google’s headquarters in Chelsea city tax bosses overruled their own assessors, cut the value of the property and saved the company a bundle.

But there’s no public record of the next unusual Finance action.

On Nov. 26, 2012, a department supervisor overruled another tax assessor’s appraisal that the Google building’s market value should be hiked to $1.2 billion for the current tax year.

That assessor for weeks resisted pressure from higher up to change his appraisal, agency sources say. A supervisor then stepped in and cut the appraisal to $827 million, which was the figure the city posted last January.

Agency computer logs show the dispute over vastly different assessments centered on how to value more than a quarter of the 2 million-square-foot building that Google itself occupies for its own employees.

The assessor judged it to be worth $92 per square foot, while his supervisor claimed comparable rents in Chelsea were just $42 a square foot.

But those same records also show the supervisor listed as one of the “comparables” a private three-story brownstone six blocks away from the huge Google office complex.

“It’s against our department’s policy to use a different class of property as a comparable, and no appraiser in their right mind would do that,” said another veteran assessor who asked not to be identified.

“While your source was able to provide you with internal documents that list ‘comparable’ properties, that does not mean they were used,” Stone said.

But if they weren’t used, why include them in the agency’s official computer log justifying a tax reduction for Google?

That reduction, by the way, was worth $12.6 million in tax savings.

“This is a very highly valued property for its building type and its neighborhood ,” Stone insisted.

Of course it is. That’s why somebody needs to investigate fully what happened here. And I don’t mean by simply Googling it.

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MSM Oversight: Failure to mention party affiliation in second Mayor's DWI arrest shows MSM incompetence

01.17.14

Statements shed light on night of mayor's arrest

Public records show Waxhaw Mayor Daune Gardner demanded to be served wine the night of her DWI arrest, according to restaurant employee statements taken by Waxhaw Police.

A public information request to the Town of Waxhaw also revealed Gardner paid for alcohol with her town-issued credit card.

There are two statements made by bar employees to Waxhaw Police about Gardner’s condition on the night of her arrest.

The first statement was given by Denise Keech, an employee at Nick’s Steak and Taphouse. Keech said Gardner and a man walked into the bar at about 10:30 p.m. Gardner asked several times for some wine, but the bar employees told her the computers were shut down and the cash registers were closed out.

Keech continued, stating that she used to tend the bar at Maxwell’s, another bar and restaurant in Waxhaw, and “was used to the way she acted.”

See Mayor/Page A9

“Daune did not look very drunk to me, because when I have seen her drunk she slurs her words, her hair is usually in her face and her clothes start to fall off,” Keech stated.

When refused wine, Keech said Gardner asked if she knew how much business the restaurant could get from town advertising and events.

The second statements was by Raphael Rogers, co-owner of Nick’s and also present in the restaurant when Gardner and the man were there. Rogers stated to the officer that Gardner appeared to have been drinking. She told Rogers “they had a bottle of wine with dinner.”

Rogers stated Gardner asked for a glass of wine several times, but he said the restaurant was closed. He gave her a glass of water instead.

“She then said really you’re going to be like, don’t make me call Nick because he will make you serve me the wine...” Rogers stated.

He then called the owner, Nick, who told him not to serve Gardner. She stayed about 25 minutes before leaving.

Rogers gave another account of Gardner coming into the restaurant on June 7.

“...(T)he Mayor was at the restaurant and became belligerent towards me,” Rogers said. “She told me that I need to get this f****** wine, this is my f****** favorite wine and you don’t know s*** about wine, I could have made a better wine list. While she was saying this, she was poking her finger into my chest.”

Rogers stated that Nick paid for Gardner’s bill so she would leave.

Shortly after the restaurant opened, Rogers said Gardner came to the restaurant to welcome them to Waxhaw.

“While she was here she told me that we need to watch out for the police,” Rogers stated. “She told me that the police were a bunch of a**holes. They are quick to pull people over and that they will be your biggest issue.”

Rogers also stated Gardner told him that if the Waxhaw Police became a problem, he should befriend an N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper.

“Have them come to the bar to drink and have the Trooper set up and wait for them to leave,” Rogers said.

“She then said that she was going to make sure the police got there (sic) new building to get them away from here,” Rogers stated.

Records also show that Gardner bought alcohol with a town credit card at least three times. On Sept. 20, 2012, records show she charged $12 for a glass of wine at The Siena Hotel in Chapel Hill. On Jan. 20, 2013, she charged $6 for Miller Lite from the mini bar at Hotel Lombardy in Washington, D.C. And on Feb. 11, 2013, she charged $12 for alcohol from the Busy Bee Cafe in Raleigh.

Town policies do not allow council members to use town-issued credit cards to purchase alcohol. Policy also requires council members to provide an itemized receipt of what they bought. Twelve were submitted without itemized receipts. In four cases, receipts were missing.

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Common Sense, Dead at Age 89

01.17.14

Russell Johnson, 'Gilligan' professor, has died

NEW YORK — 

Actor Russell Johnson, who became known to generations of TV fans as "The Professor," the fix-it man who kept his fellow "Gilligan's Island" castaways supplied with gadgets, has died. He was 89.

Johnson died Thursday morning at his home in Washington State of natural causes, said his agent, Mike Eisenstadt.

Johnson was a busy but little-known character actor when he was cast in the slapstick 1960s comedy about seven people marooned on an uncharted Pacific island.

He played high school science teacher Roy Hinkley, known to his fellow castaways as The Professor. There was seemingly nothing he couldn't do when it came to building generators, short-wave radios and other contraptions from scraps of flotsam and jetsam he found on the island. But, as Russell would joke years later, the one thing The Professor never accomplished was figuring out how to patch the hole in the bottom of the S.S. Minnow so the group could get back to civilization.

During its three-season run on CBS, critics repeatedly lambasted the show as insipid. But after its cancellation in 1967, it found generations of new fans in reruns and reunionmovies.

One of the most recent of the reunion films was 2001's "Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three-Hour Tour in History," in which other actors portrayed the original seven-member cast while Johnson and two other surviving cast members narrated and reminisced.

In a 2004 interview, Johnson analyzed the show's lasting appeal.

"Parents are happy to have their children watch it," he said. "No one gets hurt. No murders. No car crashes. Just good, plain, silly fun — that's the charm."

He admitted he had trouble finding work after "Gilligan's Island," having become typecast as the egg-headed professor. But he harbored no resentment for the show, and in later years he and other cast members, including Bob Denver, who had played the bumbling first mate Gilligan, often appeared together at fan conventions.

Johnson, Dawn Wells and Tina Louise were the last of the cast's survivors. Wells played vacationing farm girl Mary Ann Summers and Louise was sexy movie star Ginger Grant. Besides Denver, the other stars were Alan Hale Jr. as Skipper Jonas Grumby and Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer as snooty millionaires Thurston and Lovey Howell.

"Russell was a true gentleman, a dear friend with a fantastic wit, and a wonderful actor," said Wells in a statement on Thursday.

"The other half of 'The rest' is gone," she said, in a reference to the way her character and The Professor were lumped together in the original version of the show's theme song.

Before "Gilligan's Island," Johnson had appeared in dozens of films and television shows. His TV credits included "77 Sunset Strip," ''Gunsmoke," ''Rawhide," ''Wagon Train," ''The Lone Ranger," ''The Twilight Zone," ''Ben Casey," ''Hawaiian Eye" and "Death Valley Days."

He also appeared in more than two dozen feature films, including "MacArthur," ''The Greatest Story Ever Told" and cult science fiction favorites such as "It Came From Outer Space." In the 1953 Western "Law and Order," he took part in a gunfight with the film's star, Ronald Reagan.

Although he didn't work as often after "Gilligan's Island," Johnson remained active into the late 1990s, appearing on such shows as "My Two Dads," ''Dynasty" and "Newhart."

The future actor was part of a family of seven children raised in Ashley, Pa.

He joined the Army Air Corps during World War II and served as a B-24 bombardier on missions over the Pacific war zone, breaking his ankles in 1945 when his plane was shot down over the Philippine island of Mindanao. He was discharged as a first lieutenant in November 1945, having earned a Purple Heart and other medals.

Upon his discharge, Johnson enrolled at the Actors Lab in Hollywood under the GI Bill. Fellow actor Paul Henreid saw him in a play there and landed him a role as a villain in the film "For Men Only." Until "Gilligan's Island," the ruggedly handsome Johnson often played villains.

He married actress Kay Cousins after leaving the Army, and the couple had a son, David, and a daughter, Kim. His wife died in 1980, and his son, a prominent Los Angeles AIDS activist, died of AIDS in 1994.

After remarrying, Johnson and wife Constance Dane moved to Bainbridge Island, Wash., in 1988.

"We didn't intentionally set out to move to an island," the actor, noting the irony, told a reporter in 1993. "We'd lived in Los Angeles for 40 years and just wanted to get away from the heat, the smog and crowds."

From the island he often took a ferry to Seattle to do voice-overs for radio commercials.

It was also on Bainbridge Island that Johnson wrote the memoir "Here on Gilligan's Isle."

Survivors include his wife and daughter.

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Border Insecurity: Man arrested after neighbors catch him masturbating

01.17.14

PHARR — Police arrested a local man accused of repeatedly masturbating by his window in a “trance-like” state, court records show.

Pharr investigators arrested Mark Anthony Salinas, 41, on Wednesday and took him before a municipal judge who formally charged him with two counts of indecent exposure and set his bond at $1,000 in cash. Court records redacted the address of the incident and the victims’ names.

Police began looking into Salinas on Dec. 20 when his next-door neighbors saw him multiple times standing by his front window, which had no blinds or curtains, “wearing a pair of white underwear by his mid thighs and rubbing his genitals,” court records show.

According to the probable cause affidavit, the first incident was reported at 2:30 p.m. when a couple returning home saw Salinas — their neighbor — masturbating by the window. The couple took a photograph with their cellphone to use as evidence and called police. A Pharr police officer went by the house but was not able to find Salinas.

That evening, the couple’s son walked his mother to her car and they saw Salinas once again by the window with his underwear by his thighs masturbating “in sort of a trance” staring off into space, records show. The son went to confront Salinas, who didn’t even acknowledge him at first and then simply turned around and walked down his hallway as he continued stroking his genitals, the complaint states.

Police arrived for a second time and met with the victims, who were able to pick out Salinas from a photo lineup. On Dec. 23, Pharr police were able to get an arrest warrant for Salinas.

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Father upset with terms on school’s sexual education poster

01.17.14

Warning: This story contains terms that some may find offensive or inappropriate, reader and viewer discretion is recommended.

SHAWNEE, Kan. – A father said if his 13-year-old daughter hadn’t taken a picture of a questionable public poster and shown him, he’d never have known the content. Now that he knows, he’s not happy.

Mark Ellis says his daughter goes to Hocker Grove Middle School in the Shawnee Mission School District. She was so shocked by what she recently saw on a poster at school, that she took a picture of it home and showed her parents.

Her dad initially assumed it was a student prank, until he called the school and found  it was part of the curriculum.

“Why would you put it in front of 13-year-old students?” he asked.

He thought the poster, which lists things like “oral sex” and “grinding,” might’ve been a prank until he contacted the school principal. He was told it was a teaching material. But Ellis is now concerned that what’s on this poster is being taught to his daughter in school

“It upsets me. And again, it goes back to who approved this? You know this had to pass through enough hands that someone should have said, ‘Wait a minute, these are 13-year-old kids, we do not need to be this in-depth with this sexual education type of program,’” he said.

District spokeswoman, Leigh Anne Neal, says the poster needs to be viewed in the context of a bigger curriculum, which she calls abstinence-based for students in middle school.

“The poster that you reference is actually part of our middle school health and science materials, and so it is a part of our district approved curriculum,” Neal said. “However the item is meant to be part of a lesson, and so certainly as a standalone poster without the context of a teacher-led discussion, I could see that there might be some cause for concern.”

She said that the approved curriculum is in line with what other schools around the country do as well.

“The curriculum it is a part of, it aligns with national standards around those topics, and it’s part of our curriculum in the school district,” she said.

But Ellis thinks if that’s the case, the curriculum needs to change.

“This has nothing to do with abstinence or sexual reproduction,” he said. “I would like to see that this particular portion of the curriculum is removed from the school.”

And if the curriculum doesn’t change, Ellis plans to remove his daughter from the sexual education classes.

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Long Wait For Entitlements Causing Frustration: No Mention of Job Hunting Success Stories During Wait

01.16.14

Missouri’s new food stamp system not showing signs of improvement

News 4 received more complaints regarding Missouri’s new food stamp application system and how it’s not working.

"People who are applicants for services are very frustrated,” said Karen Warren of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. This organization helps some of the people who are denied food stamps.

She is hearing the same complaints of people waiting for months, requests for information already turned in and people unable to talk with a case worker.

This started when the Family Support Division tried to streamline service in the St. Louis area. They had applicants put their paperwork in a drop box without meeting with a caseworker face-to-face and waited for a telephone interview.

"Because of the nature of their livelihood they may not have enough money or are behind on their bill so they may not have access to regular phone service," Warren said.

Last November, case worker, Holly Roe told News 4 these changes have made it harder for her and other case workers to do their jobs.

“Most of us no longer know our caseloads we don’t know our clients anymore. Our clients no longer know us,” said Roe.

It is designed to make things better but some are questioning whether it was an improvement or a step back.

Warren said “as things are now from the clients’ perspective I don't think they will view it as an improvement.”

She said there is another potential problem with the denials and reapplications, eligibility specialists maybe getting swamped.

So what’s meant to be more efficient actually slow things down?

People who have been turned down have the right for an administrative appeal.

Some are reversed while some people are forced to start the application process all over again.

Warren recommends anyone going through this should be persistent as possible.

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