Jerome Prince: Prince of Taxes Like so many other politicians, Mr. Prince apparently has never met a tax that he doesn’t like. During his long tenure at the Calumet Township Assessor’s office, he sat idly and quietly by while Booker Blumenberg—his mentor—waged war on the business community and nearly single-handedly was responsible for chasing 75% of Gary businesses out of town (maybe even more); but never a peep from Jerome Prince: the Prince of Taxes—not ever even a whisper. When he was moonlighting as a Gary city councilman, he went along with every scam project that fleeced the taxpayers in Gary—his constituents! What did we hear from Mr. Prince, the Prince of Taxes? Nada…not a peep then either. His district fell further and further into ruin during his watch. Then, after the opportunity arose to become a County Councilman, he jumped at it (wouldn’t want to miss out on climbing the ladder of his political career). But let’s not forget, during his short stint as a County Councilman, he was one of the critical “yes” votes that brought you the Lake County Option Income Tax. Let’s hear it for Councilman Prince, the Prince of Taxes! And now, just a few years later, he is all ready to jump ship on the County Council position in hopes of becoming the Lake County Assessor. Shudder the thought! I guess that he must want to start wrecking the rest of the county just like he helped do at his old job at the Calumet Township Assessor (until he got fired from this job). He can’t possibly think that he has something positive to offer to the county, could he? Could he be that delusional? Could anyone be? I wonder what happened to him at the patronage position he was given shortly after voting for Rudy Clay’s much-maligned garbage contract; you know, the one where he got a job working for Allied Waste (in what seemed like a brazen example of the old quid pro quo; vote for this contract and the company that was the beneficiary of the contract gives you a do-nothing job). Oh yeah, he got fired from this job also. How many people can get fired from a patronage job? I wonder what he did wrong. Someone should ask him, see if he’ll tell you why. (I highly doubt it, though) So why do you suppose that Mr. Prince, the Prince of Taxes, has the full support of the Lake County Democratic Machine? Well that’s an easy one folks: because they know they can count on him to vote for any tax put before him; he always has before. They also know that if he were to be elected Assessor, they could likely count on him to raise taxes for some, and possibly lower them for others. (Think about how Jackie Collins’ office just lowered the taxes for their pal, Willie Harris. You know him, the one who was recently released from federal prison for his role in the GUEA scandal. Willie coincidentally, was sentenced to prison along with former county councilman Will Smith Jr. And it was Will Smith’s empty County Council seat that Jerome Prince--the Prince of Taxes--filled. So you see, things have sort of come full circle now.) But the piece de resistance, the one that takes the cake of all of his previous escapades, has got to be this gig he just received from Joe Van Dyk and his most deleterious, Department of Redevelopment; the contract by which they are going to be paying him $45.00 an hour to help the City of Gary develop a strategy to snap up properties at Lake County tax sales. He is going to help the City of Gary navigate their way through the tax sale laws. Isn’t that what they have lawyers for? (See the following quote from a recent article in the Post-Tribune: “He will help us navigate the tax sale laws,” Van Dyk said. “He’ll provide a template to go through.”) I thought that the “template” Mr. Van Dyk is referring to, is more widely known as the book of Indiana Statutes! This guy has blood on his hands. Half the reason that Gary has 20,000 tax-delinquent properties can be traced directly back to him, along with his many cohorts, his “partners in crime”, his peers throughout his bland, unremarkable political career. He has already played a small role in destroying the once-great city of Gary. Don’t let him get into a position whereby he will be able to bring his own personal brand of destruction to the rest of this county! The Prince of Taxes knows the patronage game quite well, but that’s about all. Is this the person we need in the Assessor’s office? Or any other political office for that matter?
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:43:17 +0000
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