Jersey City Ward E Councilwoman Eleana Little committed to voting for Mayor James Solomon’s 15 percent rate hike on the third quarter tax bills during a sometimes contentious town hall she hosted at City Hall night.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
Dubbing themselves “Ward E Neighbors,” a group of protesters gathered on the corner of Grove and Grand Streets with a video truck noting Little supported the 20 percent tax hike for Q3 Solomon initially proposed last week before he pulled it due to a lack of support.
The video truck featured multiple languages and called for Little to change her mind on supporting the increases, alongside a black-and-white attack ad-style image of her handing out campaign literature.
“We were motivated to do this because we were so outraged and incensed, not by the fact that we would have to pay more taxes – we are happy to pay more taxes – but by the fact that our council member Eleana Little was happy to shove this increase down our throat without even consulting this community or questioning the needs of this community,” organizer Alexander Gleason told HCV.
“We find that to be incredibly disrespectful.”
According to Gleason, he has put together a community petition and gathered over 232 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon, which he has already presented to Little to show they aren’t playing games.
In response Solomon announcing a newly proposed 15 percent rate hike for the Q3 tax bills just before Little’s town hall began, as HCV first reported, Gleason said if Little agrees to that then their protest is already working.
Gleason noted that at a time when Democratic Socialists of America are growing across the country, “nothing is more harmful to the cause” then elected officials who call themselves socialists but support “massive taxes on working families in Jersey City.”
He also gleefully led protestors in chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho, this tax hike has got to go,” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Eleana Little just say no!” although at one point he mistakenly called her “Eleanor.”
At the meeting, Little began by apologizing for releasing a statement supporting the initial 20 percent rate hike for Q3 before holding a community meeting first.
“I think that was probably a little premature, although when we released a statement on the 22nd, we thought we were going to be voting on the 24th. So it did not leave us a lot of leeway,” she said.
“But I’m very glad that the vote was able to get pushed back, and that we are able to hold this community meeting.”
Little also noted that earlier that day, Jersey City got good news that it would be receiving the full $120 million ask in transitional state aid, which could have led to catastrophic scenarios including a 31 percent tax increase if no state aid was allocated at all.
“$15 million of it will be direct aid. The remainder will be in a low interest loan with forbearance. So we won’t need to start paying it until we get out of this financial crisis,” she explained.
“And when we do, the interest rate will be much lower. So that was really beneficial in terms of getting us out of this mess.”
Echoing Solomon, Little said the over quarter billion dollars budget deficit inherited from former Mayor Steven Fulop’s administration has been a daunting task, with the deficit down to $80 million following the state aid allocation and budget cuts by Solomon’s team.
She added she supported what she described as an unfortunate but necessary tax increase that would be spread across both remaining quarters in the year, as opposed to completely in the fourth quarter.
“That is what we need to raise taxes to deal with. I heard you loud and clear since my initial statement. And I want to be clear with you that my initial statement was not a statement that I wanted to raise taxes 20 percent,” Little declared.
“It was a statement that I felt we needed to vote for an estimated budget before the Q3 tax bills went out, because concentrating the entire 2026 year tax increase on your Q4 tax bill is very painful for a lot of people.”
Little said since tax lien sales are in mid-December, this gives taxpayers time to pay late Q3 tax bills with fewer penalties than Q4 – especially if the increase is stacked entirely during that period.
Shortly thereafter, the councilwoman was interrupted by heckling from the audience, yelling that Little should have been opposed to the 20 percent tax hike from the beginning, repeating that she felt it was the best case scenario to rectify the bad situation.
Little also noted that the vote at Wednesday’s special council meeting will be 15 percent, drawing applause from Gleason while others began to yell out in discontent.
As the crowd grew more rowdy, Little noted everyone will have time to speak for three minutes each at the end of the presentation and that she would stay after that to continue discussion with any remaining residents.
Little concluded that there is “no scenario” where the city could implement a zero percent tax increase, which she called “divorced from reality,” despite Fulop making a claim to the contrary last week.
“I won’t sugarcoat it, I wish we could not raise your taxes,” she added.
Responding to resident outrage that Little was a renter and not a homeowner, she said renters pay taxes through rent and that shouldn’t disqualify someone from holding public office, which led to some more discord before CFO/Finance Director Bill Viqueira took over.
He gave a brief presentation on the soon-to-be-proposed $834 million budget and what has been to done to address the massive deficit beyond the aforementioned state aid.
Afterwards, Little took questions from residents, including several on tax abatements and their impacts on tax increases, which she said typically bring in more property tax dollars to the city than normal.
While many residents were eager to speak their mind and interjected frequently, often yelling their qualms about the tax increase, Little went speaker-by-speaker from the front to the back of the room to hear their, at times, overtly hostile concerns.
After a resident asked about increasing fees for vacant lots from $500 annually as well as hospitality and tourism fees, Little said that increasing a number of municipal fees across the board is one way the city is seeking to add to recurring revenues.
In response to a resident’s question pertaining to 10 percent cuts made to all departments except the Public Safety Department, Little said she would be introducing a budget amendment soon that would do just that.
Responding to claims by residents that “Mayor Solomon, you are the previous administration,” Viqueira stated that the financials show the errs of the Fulop administration that Solomon maintains he has called out during his tenure on the council.
Responding directly to HCV, Little said she would be voting yes at Wednesday’s meeting, which has just one agenda item.
“Like I said before, I do think it’s important to spread out the tax bill across Q3 and Q4, so I do think it’s important to pass this on July 1,” Little said.
“But during the budget process, with the budget introduced on July 15th, we will be going through with a fine-tooth comb, line item by line item trying to identify additional areas for savings. I can’t promise that the final number for 2026 will equal 15 percent. 15 percent is what is being proposed for Q3 so the entire burden doesn’t fall on Q4.”
On securing more recurring revenues, Little added that in addition to revenue from recently reenacted traffic enforcement, the city has put out a request for proposals for automated parking enforcement, among looking into increasing other parking related fees.
