Beware of fake farmers: Jack Curtis knows about your scam

If you need to feel better about our democracy – and who doesn’t these days? – let me share the story of Jack Curtis and his unlikely success in getting Trenton to reconsider a massive tax break given to thousands of wealthy people who don’t deserve or need help.

Curtis will be formally recognized by the governor on Tuesday during his State of the State address, meaning his one-man crusade is about to bear fruit. The man holds no public office, he cannot boast of any scientific achievements or artistic genius, nor did he rush into a burning building to save a child. But for me, he is a model citizen and a source of inspiration.

Its cause? The infamous and corrupt Farmland Preservation Act. It allows wealthy people with large estates to claim to be farmers and get a 98 percent reduction in property taxes on their land. You are eligible if you sell a single $1,000 worth of agricultural products, like firewood or honey. And no receipt is required. This stuff is for little people. This program runs on the honor system.

Donald Trump has a loan on his Bedminster golf course, which allows him to save nearly $250,000 a year. Bruce Springsteen has one too. This scam is bipartisan.

And it drives Curtis crazy. A retired school principal who lives in a modest home in Mendham, he calculates that it costs the average town taxpayer $600 more to cover the cost of the town’s 155 fake farmers. I asked the local appraiser to check the tires on this number, and he said Curtis had it. almost true. The retired director has done his homework. And he compiled it all in a blue three-ring binder, with all his stats, plus color photos from Google Earth shots he dug up showing dozens of properties claiming credit.

“I pay extra for someone who owns a $6 million house,” he told senators at a Dec. 12 hearing in Trenton.

It was a remarkable audience. Trenton typically brings in experts on a given bill and gives them a few minutes to make their speeches while senators shuffle documents and read text messages. Curtis testified for 23 minutesand the senators were very attentive, asked questions, and showed deference to his local expertise. The man had his facts.

“It was unusual,” said Sen. Shirley Turner, a Democrat who has been trying to reform the tax break for a decade. “I was impressed by him. You just couldn’t argue. He had everything there in black and white – and technicolor.

The Economic Growth Committee voted 4-0 to establish a commission to study the reform during the hearing. The lead sponsor was Sen. Joe Pennacchio, a Republican, but Turner became a co-sponsor at the end of Curtis’ testimony.

“I absolutely love helping real farmers,” Pennacchio says. “But 36,000 people are claiming this credit, and there are not 36,000 farmers in New Jersey. And for every dollar you give to someone who doesn’t deserve it, that means other taxpayers have to make up the difference.”

The commission is a modest step, but Murphy’s plan to recognize Curtis on Tuesday tells us something bigger is in the works. The most obvious reforms would be to raise the income threshold so that fake farmers cannot qualify, and to stop relying on the honor system.

If Murphy ends up signing reform, they should call it “Jack’s Law.” Because for five years the man has been taking on these windmills, showing people like me around the fake farms, calling the governor on his monthly show on WNYC, interviewing local assessors and legislators, and building this blue binder. And now, suddenly, it’s show time.

“I don’t feel so much like Don Quixote anymore,” Curtis says. “These senators let me speak for 20 minutes. I was shocked. They shook their heads as I spoke and went through my entire list of things. Then I finished, and Shirley Turner turns on her mic, and I thought I was going to get my ass busted. She said: ‘Mr. Curtis, you are 100% right. Thanks for doing this.’

Yes, this push could still be derailed. But it’s on the governor’s agenda, and the argument wins, only because an individual citizen saw an injustice and made the effort.

“As a professor of U.S. history, you talk about how laws are supposed to be able to be changed when a common man gets involved,” Curtis says. “But I’m 78 and I was a local councilor in Dover, and I know it doesn’t always work that way. So, I was surprised by that. It really looks like democracy can work.”

Not always, okay. But sometimes. And it is a comfort in troubled times.

More: Chronicles of Tom Moran

Tom Moran can be contacted at [email protected] or (973) 986-6951. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Notice on Facebook.

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