The City Says It Is Short $255 Million. Here, It Has Collected Nothing.
Jersey City is facing a $255 million budget deficit. On July 1, 2026, a day after the State approved $120 million in aid, the City Council unanimously voted down the Mayor's proposed 15% tax increase, and third-quarter tax bills are now delayed for months. The deficit remains, and the state aid carries conditions to strengthen the City's finances. The administration's own recovery plan calls for collecting outstanding obligations and increasing payments from developers and corporations before it raises taxes.
This page documents one of those outstanding obligations. A recorded covenant at the Korean War Memorial requires the owner of Portside Towers to close and chain the lane beside the memorial every night, by the property's security personnel. Portside Towers is owned by Equity Residential. The City's own code provides a penalty for non-compliance: up to $2,000 for each day it continues, and each day a violation continues is treated as a separate offense. Night after night, the lane is reported open in the City's own 311 system. The City has not issued or collected a single fine.
On July 1, 2026 the City Council unanimously voted down the proposed 15% Q3 rate hike (reduced from an earlier 20%). The $255M deficit remains and third-quarter bills are delayed toward November; the $120M in state aid is largely state-authorized borrowing plus transitional aid, which carries state conditions to strengthen the City's finances. Sources: Hudson County View · Gothamist · CBS News.
Every night since April 22, 2025, the open lane has been reported in the City's own 311 system, – days in a row. Those daily reports have gone to the Mayor's office and the council throughout. As residents stated on the public record, the prior mayor and council and the current mayor and council have each received a daily written reminder that this covenant exists; Mayor Solomon received it first as a councilman and now as Mayor. By the ordinance's own penalty schedule, – days at up to $2,000 a day comes to as much as – in penalties the City has not pursued, even as it warns residents still face that increase on a later bill.
These figures describe the maximum the City's own penalty schedule allows, not a debt any court has found owing. Whether a penalty is ultimately imposed is for the City to pursue and for the legal process to determine, with full due process for the property owner. The authors are residents and advocates, not attorneys, and this is not legal advice.
Questions for Mayor Solomon
In his July 14 public budget email, Mayor Solomon wrote, “When we opened the books, the total gap was $255 million.” He said his budget proposes a 15.5% municipal property-tax increase, approximately $51 more per month for the average homeowner on the City portion of the tax bill alone. Addressing developers and PILOTs, he called for “paying what they owe” and said “no abatement gets approved unless it brings the city more money.” He also wrote: “we are asking the prosecutor to seek maximum penalties for failure to maintain their properties. Fining slumlords per violation, per day.”
A promise was recorded against this land in 2007 in exchange for a public street. Every night it goes unenforced is a night that promise to the men this memorial honors goes unkept.
Be heard on the record. On July 1 the Council voted down the proposed tax increase, but the City's $255 million deficit and unfinished budget remain, and the fight over how the City closes its gap continues at upcoming Council meetings at City Hall, 280 Grove Street. To speak, contact the City Clerk to be placed on the public-comment list. One question worth asking: “Before the City raises my taxes or spends state aid, why is it collecting no fines for the nightly violation at the Korean War Memorial?”
The Memorial and the Men It Honors
The "Candles of Life" memorial stands as a permanent tribute to 126 Hudson County soldiers who gave their lives during the Korean War (1950–1953). Dedicated December 7, 2002, Pearl Harbor Day, a deliberate choice linking generations of American sacrifice.
Sources: Good News Network · Korea Portal
"Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met."
The Bargain the City Wrote
In 2007, Jersey City gave up a public street. Ordinance 07-153 vacated the portion of Washington Street beside the memorial, from Dudley Street south to the Morris Canal Big Basin, and dedicated the westerly side of the vacated street as a public park. The City set conditions for that trade, wrote them itself, and the council explicitly authorized acceptance of the deed that records them.
The ordinance was adopted September 11, 2007 by a vote of 8 to 0. The easement deed recording its conditions has sat in the Hudson County land records since September 26, 2007 (Instrument No. 20070926010012919). The condition at issue reads:
This is not a policy preference; it is a recorded covenant, a condition the City itself wrote in exchange for giving up a public street. As Daniel Feldman put it to the council on June 10, 2026: “The county recorded it. It binds every owner since. It is not stayed. No court has touched it.” Portside Towers (100 Warren Street and 155 Washington Street, 527 units) is owned by Equity Residential.
Under § 1-25 of the Jersey City Code, violations carry penalties of up to $2,000 per day, and each day a violation continues constitutes a separate offense (§ 1-25(C)).
One Obligation the Stay Does Not Reach
Chapter 218, Article I of the Jersey City Code requires owners of multiple dwellings of 100 or more units to furnish uniformed security guards. Enforcement of that chapter at Portside Towers is currently stayed while the owner's court challenge is pending.
The recorded covenant is a separate instrument. It is not part of that case, and no court order stays it. And it requires the same fact on the ground that the ordinance does: security personnel present at the property each night, with one specific nightly duty beside the memorial.
“Whatever happens to the ordinance, the deed still requires security personnel at our buildings every night.”
Daniel Feldman, public comment, June 10, 2026 (video)
A neighboring resident drew the same connection at the April 8, 2026 meeting: “This is what happens when one violation cascades into another.” The security obligation the owner is contesting in court and the recorded covenant it has never met point to the same missing security post. Each night the lane stands open is documented in the live registry below.
This is the whole dispute in miniature. Even if the owner prevailed in its challenge to the 24/7 security law tomorrow, this recorded covenant would still require its security personnel to close and chain the memorial lane every night. The promise to the memorial does not rise or fall with that case. It stands on its own, in the land records, unstayed. The simplest way for the City to protect both the residents and the memorial is the same: security personnel on site.
Jersey City's Own Security Experts Already Named It
This is not only the residents' account. In 2025, at the direction of the Business Administrator, Jersey City's Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security assessed Portside Towers to evaluate the owner's request to be excused from the 24/7 uniformed-security law. The assessment, prepared by the office's director, found the existing security wanting. Among the failures it recorded, in the City's own words:
The same assessment documented a bullet that entered a nineteenth-floor apartment window, a violent intruder who followed a bleeding victim into an unsecured lobby, at least fourteen broken or propped-open access points, and a parking garage door left inoperable for seventeen days. The City denied the exemption. The owner then sued the City to overturn that denial, and filed the City's own report as an exhibit to its own complaint.
So the record is already made, by the City's own hand. Its security experts examined the property, found the danger, and named this memorial. What remains is enforcement.
🔍 Read the City's assessment, page by page →
The assessment is an exhibit to the owner's verified complaint in its Superior Court challenge (Hudson County). Characterizations here track the filed report; the document controls.
Where It Stands with the Administration
For the Briefing Corporation Counsel Offered
- The recorded condition. The easement deed and Ordinance 07-153, downloadable below, with the instrument number for direct verification in the Hudson County land records.
- The enforcement provision. § 1-25 of the City Code: up to $2,000 per day, each day a separate offense.
- The nightly record. Every SeeClickFix report, live from the City's own 311 system, filterable and downloadable as CSV in the registry below.
- The council record. Every time this was raised at the podium in 2026, with links to the City's own meeting videos at the exact moment.
The open question, asked at the podium and in correspondence: a date for the briefing, and a named office that owns enforcement of the recorded condition.
The Documents
Primary sources, hosted here so nothing has to be requested. Every document below is a public record.
The Council Record, 2026
Raised at the public podium meeting after meeting. Each entry links to the City's own meeting video at the moment the remarks begin.
Daniel Feldman, 155 Washington Street
“As this council may not already know, there is a stay on the enforcement of the security ordinance, Chapter 218, at our buildings, while their landlord's challenge sits in court. My question tonight is why. Why is there still a stay when the city has always had the simplest path to having it lifted? Since 2007, a recorded covenant has required the lane beside the Korean War Memorial to be closed and chained from eight at night to eight in the morning every day by the property's own security personnel. The county recorded it. It binds every owner since. It is not stayed. No court has touched it.
For more than a year, the prior council and the prior mayor, and this council, and this mayor have received a daily written reminder that it exists. The city has never told the court that this one recorded obligation on its own makes the exemption our landlord is seeking pointless. Whatever happens to the ordinance, the deed still requires security personnel at our buildings every night. Instead of clearing it up in court, something new has started. Each night the lane stands open, I file a report in the city's own system. Now someone who works for the city marks each new violation a duplicate of an old one, even though this city's own code says each day a violation continues as a new and separate offense.
Why does our landlord always get a pass? The memorial deserves the protection that was promised, and the city and its taxpayers deserve the bargain it paid for. This council deserves to know how simple the fix has always been.”
Quotations are transcribed from the official meeting videos published by Jersey City TV. Each entry links to the video at the moment the remarks begin so the source can be verified directly. The memorial was also raised at the podium by other residents on January 28 (video) and February 11 (video, video).
Veterans Speak
In the Press
The memorial and the unenforced security obligation have been covered from local press to national outlets. Sources verified from public URLs.
The Memorial
- Good News NetworkAfter Korean War Monument is Vandalized in NJ, a South Korean Town Donates to Repair ItJul 2015
- Hudson County ViewSouth Korea Mayor Comes to Jersey City as They Unveil New War Memorial InscriptionMay 2024
- Hudson ReporterKorean War Veterans Association of Hudson County: "The Forgotten War"Jul 2003
- WikipediaKorean War Veterans Memorial (Jersey City)Ongoing
The Unenforced Security Obligation
The Live Registry
Every SeeClickFix report related to the Korean War Memorial, retrieved live from the City's own 311 system each time this page loads. Daily automated reports and mobile field inspections, filterable and downloadable.
| ID | Reported ▼ | Summary | Status | Days | Link | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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