ELLENVILLE – Despite good intentions, the proposed tax on utilities may be more trouble than it's worth, if this week's board of trustees meeting was anything to go by. The board held a public hearing this Monday to discuss the function and effects of the proposed tax, which would require most utility companies doing business within the village under the supervision of the State Department of Public Services to pay a 1 percent tax to village government. Utilities that fall under the Department of Public Services are electric, natural gas, steam, telecommunication, and water, and so companies such as Time Warner Cable, Central Hudson Electric, and Verizon would be subject to the tax.

The origins of the proposed law, however, actually stem from garnering an accurate tax assessment from the "antenna farm" on Sam's Point Road in Cragsmoor. The land on which the antenna is situated falls within village jurisdiction, and as such, is subject to village taxation. However, the land is currently assessed as vacant — because there are no residences or businesses in the strictest sense, in that no customers walk in or out or conduct any transactions there.

"There's a tower on it in which thousands of dollars are being generated for the owner of that property," said Ellenville Mayor Jeff Kaplan on the subject. "Although it's an income-based property, we're not getting our proper assessment for it. And that would include not just the village but the state, town, county and school. And the only way to get a proper tax for it is to have a proper accounting of the income that's generated from that property.

"That is a means that we can properly assess property that is income-based. When you have a residence, you're basing the assessment on a market value. When you have a commercial property you base the value of assessment based upon its income producing ability…and we're not getting our proper revenues for it."

When looking into how to give the village's assessor Mike Sommer the requisite legal "teeth" to conduct a proper assessment, Village Attorney Phil Cataldi found that many other villages in New York State have such a tax. Instituting it, along with language that adds that the law "would further require said utilities to file a return quarterly with the village, which shall state the gross income or gross operating income for the period covered thereby," would then give all the information necessary for Sommer to assess the property accordingly — a task he's been unable to do because of a lack of cooperation on the property-owner's part.

"For whatever reason, they just ignore his calls and his letters, so he can't really tell who it is who he should be adjusting the special franchise tax or billing them for the operation on the property," said Cataldi.

However, when the details of the proposed law were discussed at the public hearing on Monday night, the mayor's reaction was less than enthusiastic, and the residents in attendance who spoke were unanimous in their dislike for the proposition, citing the probability that the cost of the tax would undoubtedly be passed down to the consumers of utilities in the village.

"Some municipalities have a clause in the local law that says that nothing construed herein can be utilized by the utilities to pass the cost or expense of this down to the consumer. That would make it part of the law," said Cataldi in a phone interview on Monday, a fact he reiterated later that evening at the hearing. Such a clause was included in Ellenville's proposed law, but he did admit that determining who would be the "watchdog" for ensuring that taxpayers didn't feel the brunt of the law was up in the air.

The public hearing was left open until the next village board meeting. Mayor Kaplan asked Cataldi to confer with the New York Conference of Mayors to see how other villages dealt with this issue. Kaplan made sure to point out, however, that something needed to be done to assess the antenna property correctly.

Kaplan said at the adjournment of the hearing, "The owner of that tower is getting away with murder."

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