Prince Charlie: Still Lazy After All These Scandals

by: Thurman Hart

Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 07:30:14 AM EDT

Maybe Charles T. Epps Jr. needs to get a third job.

Epps, who receives a $225,038 annual salary plus a $1,000-a-month housing allowance as Jersey City's state-appointed superintendent and another $49,000 as an assemblyman, is behind on his city taxes.

Epps failed to pay $1,040.74 in property taxes, due May 1, on a three-family home on Bramhall Avenue. He was up to date on his taxes for his other Jersey City home on Holly Street, according to city records.

Yeah, no big deal.  Except - what the hell is he getting a "housing allowance" for when he's acting as a slum lord a property owner?  Isn't that kind of like giving a fish a water allowance?

Plus, this is a three family home.  If he isn't living there, that's three families times at least a thousand a month - and that's a fairly low price in most of Jersey City these days.  I'm willing to bet, double or nothing, that he didn't forget to collect rent from his tennants.

The school chief also was late on his taxes for the last two quarters of 2005 on the same property, but paid up in March, records show.
"I guess I need someone to take care of them for me," said Epps, who admitted that, as an elected official, he really ought to take better care of his civic responsibilities.

Well, "better" would imply that he had taken any kind of care of them in the first place.

That leaves me with the nagging question: Is there anything so simple that Prince Charlie couldn't screw it up?

Thanks to Jarrett Renshaw of the Jersey Journal for the orginal reporting on the issue.  Cross-posted for hybrid vigor from NJ Tammany