More than 100 local residents currently living in village apartment buildings, condominiums and co-ops demanded last week that the Garden City Board of Education make a motion to consolidate property classes 2, 3 and 4. Fed up with what they call exorbitant taxes year after year, some warned the board of a forming coalition and even threatened they'd sue if necessary.

"If we don't put a stop to this now, people won't sell their homes and buy co-ops in Garden City. People are going to leave this community," Ray Coyne, who currently lives in a Stewart Avenue co-op, said. "The board has tabled this issue long enough and residents are sick of it. We plan on taking further action, including litigation."

Properties in Nassau County are divided into four property "classes" for the purpose of collecting school real estate taxes. Class 1 properties are residential homes; Class 2 properties are multi-family homes, including condominiums, apartments and co-ops; Class 3 properties are areas owned by utilities; and Class 4 properties are considered commercial.

Although Board President Kenneth Monaghan admitted he and fellow board members recognize the inequality between the taxes Class 1 and Class 2 property owners must pay, he didn't consider Class 1 taxes to be significantly askew when compared to those of Class 2.

"We've gone through an extensive analysis that John Powell [assistant superintendent for Business and Finance] has been working on in trying to look at where homes trade in the village. We looked at every real estate transaction made in the village for Class 1 and Class 2 properties over the last three years." Although residents can review these statistics, they may have to wait several days because it's still in draft form.

Monaghan further said, "I don't dispute that the tax burden, if you look at school taxes for Class 2 property owners alone, has risen over the past three years at greater rate than for Class 1 property holders. But it's not clear, looking across Class 1 on a home-by-home basis, that taxes are significantly askew from where Class 2 is, in total, when examining the total tax package - county, town, village and school.

"The board has a motion in front of them to defer for another year a final decision on this because we recognized the county is going through a reassessment process right now," he said. "We recognize that a year from now, if we decide to defer the decision, that we may still be in the same place and the board may at that time make the decision to consolidate classes.

"When we examined this situation we asked the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Budget Affairs to review this and they, after meeting with Kemp Hannon's office, discussing it with our own board and the coalition's counsel, made a unanimous decision to recommend that the board defer decision until next year," he said.

Two members of the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Budget Affairs are Class 2 property owners, Monaghan noted. "These two members took part in that unanimous recommendation that the board defer until next year," he said.

Moreover the board of education's own counsel, as well as Nassau County officials, advised members to defer another year until the countywide reassessment process was complete.

Lydia Staiano, a Class 2 property owner who forewarned the board of the forming coalition, asked, "Why can't the tax burden be shifted to Classes 3 and 4?" Staiano, who currently pays $6,700 in school taxes, added, "Both the city of Long Beach and East Williston have made moves over the past years to consolidate Classes 2, 3 and 4." She said the coalition is working with a three-prong plan and asked board members for a "courage of leadership" to use their ability to change and consolidate classes.

"The coalition is moving forward and we're not going away on this. We won't accept your resolution to postpone your decision and push the problem forward another year," she said. Alerting the board of their intentions, Staiano said the coalition is pursuing three avenues, including going forward with a class action suit; scrutinizing this year's school budget; and seeing whether or not current school board members need to be replaced.

"We have always accepted the budget but there's such a tax burden on $250,000 homes - which is the vast majority of us here - that we will scrutinize this budget to see whether or not we'll vote yes for it," Staiano said. "We need people on this board who understand the equity of the taxpayers and quite frankly, we're looking to see if some of you need to be replaced.

"We are in the process of getting Class 1 property owners to join our coalition. We got an overwhelmingly positive response from them even when we told them that their tax rate would increase by $1. When they understood the circumstance they said they're embarrassed it exists this way."

Bill Keegan, a former Hamilton Gardens board member, reminded the board that this is strictly a village issue. "With the state of Nassau County right now I don't know if it would be in our best interest to take guidance from them. Don't let Nassau County's guidance cloud your decision because it's not rational. You've recognized there's a burden and that you can do something about it. We don't want you to be a myopic board that can't make decisions. We don't want to wait a year," Keegan said.

A Wyndham resident, who pays over $6,000 in school taxes, told board members, "We don't want to pay less taxes than we should and we don't want to pay more than we should. Everything should be done as fairly as possible, that's all we're asking for."

Donald Leistman, counsel for the Wyndham board of directors, claimed that Nassau's reassessment project will have little effect on discrepancies between the different classes but will instead adjust assessments within classes. "If the board defers the matter for another year, it will cost the average Class 2 owner $1,700," he said.

Greg Moore, president of Wyndham East, pleaded, "We're your neighbors and we're getting murdered. It seems you have a moral obligation to your neighbors. We want you to do for us what we'd do for you."

Prior to last Monday's meeting, the board placed the item on the agenda to defer for another year, but after listening to fed-up neighbors, opted to reconsider the matter at a future board meeting.

Board member Dr. Nancy Fredericks made a motion and the board unanimously chose to table the resolution in order to share the statistics with Class 2 property owners. They plan on making a decision at another meeting date.

"We'd like to get this done in one month so we can address this issue and bring closure to it by the March 18 school board meeting," Monaghan said. "We may move it beyond that because we have until June to make a decision. We have ample time to review this if we need to. We haven't finalized the numbers yet." He then asked, "Is this fair?" and several of the approximate 120 Class 2 property owners in attendance agreed.