These Are Taxing Days for N. J. Mayor

PATERSON, N. J. — People who don’t pay their taxes in Paterson can expect a phone call from the mayor.

“We’re talking about the survival of the city,” Mayor Frank X. Graves said. “I don’t want to have to lay off a bunch of employees because these people won’t pay their taxes.”

Since Graves started his tax-collection campaign two weeks ago, he has called more than 200 scofflaws and recovered more than $1 million of the $2.7 million owed to the city, he said.

“I’m unmerciful, uncompromising and I make no deals,” Graves said Friday.

The mayor, who once single-handedly caught three bank robbery suspects, said he does not aim to pressure individual homeowners who might be having temporary money problems, but instead goes after people who own several pieces of property and have failed to pay taxes on any of them.