Four properties linked to developer Eric Galloway were granted tax assessment reductions totaling $422,000 in June by the Hudson Board of Assessment review. Of the five properties grieved by Galvan Partners and the Galvan Foundation, four were granted tax relief.
Nearly 50% of all other grievers got no relief at all from the BAR in this cycle.
Tom Swope, who stepped down as a member of the BAR late last year, is now the director of the Galvan Initiatives Foundation. Those reductions were certified by BAR member Rachel Kappel and chairman Philip Forman on June 13th.
Public records indicate that the BAR did deny Galvan’s attempt to have 400 State Street (the Library building) declared tax exempt. When last checked with the IRS, Galvan had yet to be approved as a charity, which might explain the BAR’s inability to give Galloway’s operations even more assistance.
According to The Register-Star, the Galvan Foundation awarded $117,000 in local grants earlier this month, including $40,000 to the Hudson afterschool program Perfect Ten, which was founded by Forman’s wife.* Though Perfect Ten began in 2010, it was only incorporated as a nonprofit corporation at the State level in February of this year, and IRS online records do not yet list it as an approved charity as of this week.
According to its Facebook page, Perfect Ten has two full-time staff, Forman and Katherine Moore, a daughter of Hudson Common Council President Don Moore. The elder Moore voted in March to support Galvan’s controversial homeless shelter-cum-police-station at the corner of State and 4th Street.
As previously reported, some of the Hudson BAR’s other major tax reductions in 2012 include a $1.5 million tax reduction for Holcim, and a 35% break for the City’s law firm.
* Full disclosure: the Formans bought a house from this writer in 2007.
