St. Lawrence on Tax Deadbeat Rolls, Again

November 3, 2007   Do you pay your taxes? You would think a town executive who wants you to return him to office would do the same. For a guy who's been harping on "Leadership that's Working," he sure isn't holding up his end of the load. Or maybe that's just his way of making it work for him. With a $120,000 salary just at Town Hall, Supervisor St. Lawrence certainly could find a way to manage to pay his village taxes. The suit that he appears in in the photo above probably cost more than his village tax bill. The bill that he didn't pay this year was a little over $500.

Now for a senior on fixed income with medical expenses, village taxes can be a serious burden, but judging from the list of names on the warrant sent to the county by Montebello, most of those who might be suffering far greater hardships have managed to follow the law and pay their share--the list is not that long. Yet in the year 2007, it once again has the name Christopher P. St. Lawrence, the third name down on page two. This the fourth warrant sent to the county for collection of unpaid village taxes with Supervisor St. Lawrence's name on the list because his "taxes mentioned in the said account remain unpaid and that after diligent efforts he [the Montebello collector of taxes] has been unable to collect the same."

If this evasion of paying one's fair share is the result of arrogance that comes of incumbency, we need a public discussion about term limits in local politics.

Here are the facts and the documents.

This past week, Montebello sent a Return of Unpaid Village Taxes warrant to Rockland County. The County will pay the money to the Village, and it will try to collect from those on the list. In other words, the county taxpayers (all of us) will pay Chris St. Lawrence's village tax bill, until and unless he decides to get around to taking care of the debt himself.

 Here is page two of that warrant. You can see the cover page, front and back by clicking on the links that appear right below page two.

See the cover page at these locations:  Front side here, and the reverse side with an explanation here.

A Matter of Habit?

This is not the first time St. Lawrence has depended on the rest of us to pay his taxes. The pages below are from warrants sent out by the Village of Montebello in 2005, 2003, and 2001. They are the disgraceful record of a public official whose pursuit of public self-aggrandizement is the worst that I can recall in the last 40 years in Ramapo.

The implied message--"Do what I say, not what I do"--is not acceptable from any politician, but especially not from one who works so hard at and spends so much tax money on polishing his public persona, whether it's money spent on signs attached to anything that has the name Ramapo appearing anywhere near it, to videotaping long, inane "television shows" that are supposed to be informative. I would just ask that Mr. St. Lawrence pay his own taxes in the future, on time and in full, as do most of the rest of us who are struggling with our own combined tax bills. I don't need bills from my village, the town, the county, and from 48 Wesley Chapel Road.

Michael Castelluccio
Preserve Ramapo