Mayor of Newark, N.J. wants fee on shipping containers

Ras Baraka also called for the ability to collect taxes at Newark airport.    Ras Baraka, the Mayor of Newark, N.J wants his city to collect fees on shipping containers moving across docks at terminals owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as well as tax items sold at the Newark International Liberty Airport.
   Laying out his vision for “Newark 3.0” on Tuesday in a state of the city speech, Baraka said his city needs the ability to tax operations at facilities operated by the Port Authority.
   Newark, as well as Elizabeth, is home to a number of shipping terminals that are owned and leased by the bistate agency to private businesses.
   “We need the authority to put a fee on every container that rests in our port,” Baraka said, adding that the delegation from Essex County in the State Legislature are “working on a bill for a container fee in the port.”
   He noted the Panama Canal expansion as well as the Port Authority’s own project to raise the Bayonne Bridge to allow larger ships to pass beneath it are expected to result in more traffic coming through the port. And he said the airport is also expected to grow.
  “We say you cannot be in our home and cook on our stove, even if you did bring the food, and eat while we sit in the living room and starve. We want to eat too.” 
   He also said “we should be allowed to get a dollar on everything that is sold at that airport from candy to liquor to international flights.”
   Baraka said the city is “continuing to push Port Authority to be better partners and a better tenant. They occupy almost 12 miles of our city. They are the third largest seaport in the country, the largest in the region, they do billions of dollars of trade annually, and see tens of millions of passengers a year.”
   “We need more from them.” he said, noting that the city provides the port authority with water and emergency services such as police and fire.
   “We either we get some serious relationship counseling or we are going to have to seek a divorce.” he said. “We need the airport and seaport to not just be in Newark, but to be part of Newark.”
   He said he is drafting an executive order to create an office of port oversight and lease compliance, saying he wants an increase in revenue from the port, development and “real environmental mitigation.”
   “If they cannot work with us in a way that is both fair and transparent, I am prepared to do put an RFP on the street asking for interested parties to buy our seaport and use the revenue to put in a trust where we spend the interest and negotiate a PILOT (payment in lieu of tax) fee.