An “outraged” Mayor David Roberts was making phone calls to area officials today in ardent opposition to a billboard at the Hoboken PATH station from a Jersey City real estate company encouraging people to leave Hoboken because of Hoboken’s high property tax hike this year.
The sign at Observer Highway and Hudson Street reads: “Cut Your Hoboken Property Taxes 47% … We’ll Help You Leave.” It has the website for the Jersey City brokerage firm Metropolitan and Waterfront at the bottom.
Roberts said he called Jersey Citry Mayor Jerramiah Healy, County Executive Tom DeGise, and the office of Sen. Robert Menedez, among other people.
Roberts also said he had a “heated argument” with a real estate mogul from the LeFrak Development group, which has an interest in the firm. LeFrak is the company that developed the Newport section of Jersey City, right across the canal from the Hoboken PATH station.
“I told him how despicable it is, and I told him how despicable it would be would be if a Hoboken developer printed the Jersey City crime rates right in front of his building,” Roberts said.
Roberts said that an hour after that conversation, DeGise called to tell him that the ad will be coming down. —
TJC
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