Say No to New Jersey Senator Rice

Thanks to the Jersey Shore Real Estate Bubble Blog for tipping me off on this one:

Make tax cards available to all

Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, a real estate broker, is pushing a bill that would exempt property record cards, maintained by local tax assessors, from the definition of a government record. That means the public would no longer be able to access the cards through an Open Public Records Act request. Yet Rice’s bill would give real estate professionals, such as himself, open access.

It’s a self-serving piece of legislation that would benefit Rice and those in his profession, but be detrimental to everyone else. And the damage it would do to OPRA should prompt other legislators to demand that the bill be stopped in its tracks. Any effort to restrict public access to government records should be vigorously opposed.

Rice’s bill would let homeowners access their own cards, which contain information such as assessed value, ownership, lot size and number of rooms. But homeowners who wanted to review the cards of other homes in their neighborhoods, which is commonly done to support tax appeals, would be blocked from doing so.

I urge everyone to pick up the phone immediately and call Senator Ronald Rice to express your utter disgust for this self-serving legislation. He can be reached at: (973) 371-5665.

If you want to make a difference, pick up the phone, start making calls, do whatever you need to do to make your feelings known, but don’t let this pass.

Caveat Emptor!
Grim

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15 Responses to Say No to New Jersey Senator Rice

  1. Metroplexual says:

    This post has been removed by the author.

  2. Metroplexual says:

    This guy is evil. Why hide the truth from everyday people. It is public information already why hide it. He is obviously a tool. Econ 101 (as per Adam Smith) perfect information allows an economy to operate as smoothely as possible, with the best possible exchanges. All I have to say is this guy is against capitalism!

    10:43 PM

  3. pesche22 says:

    what a set this guys got

  4. CA Renter says:

    Grim,

    Saw you post this on Ben’s site, and had to come here to thank you. The Realtors are trying desperately to keep transparency out of the RE market. Thank you for this blog, and for your contributions at Ben’s. We need to get this out to people. Even though I’m in CA, I will e-mail the article and link to your blog. Perhaps if we e-mail everyone we can we can get the word out even to people who don’t follow the housing bubble.

  5. Grunt says:

    What type of bulls**t is this?
    This is public information first of all, second of all there is definitely a conflict of interest here being the Senator has connections to the brokerage industry. If New Jersey goes through with this they are just asking for an antitrust lawsuit.

  6. Anonymous says:

    I just called his office and they confirmed that everything in the post is true and said that they’d let him know…as if that is going to stop him from pushing it anyway.

  7. Anonymous says:

    There was a property asking for 500K, but bought at 230K 3 yrs back in Northern NJ. I got that infor and offered 250K for the property. My realtor almost had a heart attack when she saw my offer. That is why the senator is cranking up the shitty thing, saving his coworker “heartattacks”

  8. Anonymous says:

    You need to call and especially write YOUR state senators and Assemblymen. Rice couldn’t care less what you think if you don’t live in his district. Call the press and explain how your poor grandmother will be effected when she tries to sell her homestead to pay for assisted living or some other sob story and the press will pick it up as well. Call CN8, Call NJ12!

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