Dead‘beat’ NY pol owes $50K to city
Brooklyn state Sen. Kevin Parker has earned a bad reputation for roughing up a Post photographer and, allegedly, a traffic agent, as well as for verbally trashing his rivals. Now, he’s also a tax dodger.
Parker (right) is a deadbeat who owes more than $50,000 in outstanding property taxes and water bills, according to government records reviewed by The Post.
Parker owns a residential property at 3613 Ave. H in Brooklyn, where he lives, city and state records show. He also is a 50-percent co-owner of 186-23 Foch Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens.
Yet property taxes haven’t been paid on the Avenue H home in more than three years, according to city Department of Finance records. There’s an outstanding balance of $18,642.83 in property taxes due plus $2,445.06 in penalty interest, for a total of more than $21,087.89 in arrears, city records show.
Records also show outstanding property taxes of $10,712.22 on the Foch Boulevard residential property and $6,563 in interest for missed payments going back to 2008. The total overdue balance is $17,275.22.
In addition, Parker owes $14,285.98 in outstanding water bills that go back to 1997 on the Queens property, records show. The total arrears: $52,649.09 The Finance Department has included Parker’s water-bill debt for inclusion in a lien sale to private debt collectors.
Parker acknowledged he owes the money but tried to blow it off.
“I need a raise,” he quipped to The Post. “I’m considering becoming an Uber driver upstate.”
Parker inherited the two proper- ties from his parents, Sonie and Georgie. He fully owns the Avenue H property and is co-owner of the Foch Boulevard property with his brother, Glen, who resides there. The parents paid off the mortgages.
Parker also co-owns a third property near his residence at 3620 Avenue H.
“I inherited the properties,” said Parker, who was elected to the New York Senate in 2002. “I also inherited the tax liability.”
Parker has resided at the Avenue H residence nearly his entire life and said he took care of his mother before she died three years ago. His father passed on 10 years ago.
“My mother didn’t keep up with the tax payments,” he said.
“I did not know. I’m taking care of it now. I’m making current and back payments.”
He explained that his brother, Glen, a city government worker, is dealing with the outstanding taxes and water bills at the Foch Boulevard residence, though he is legally responsible as well.
Parker insisted his tax-deadbeat status will not damage him politically in his Senate District 21, which includes Flatbush, East Flatbush and Midwood.
“I have a very large homeowner constituency. People understand what it’s like to struggle with property taxes, water bills and mortgages,” he said. “Part of my electoral success is I live in the same circumstances as my constituents. I’m trying to pay my bills and taxes, like them.”
It’s not the first time Parker has been delinquent on paying prop- erty bills. A bank filed a foreclosure complaint against him in 2009 for failing to make payments on a one-family brick home on Bedford Avenue. He no longer owns the property.
The tax-flap revelations come just weeks after Senate Democratic Leader Andrea StewartCousins promoted Parker to minority whip, a top position in the conference. Parker heralded the appointment in a press release.
Parker also serves on the Senate Finance Committee and is the ranking Democratic on the energy committee.
In 2005, he avoided a rap in the traffic-agent case by agreeing to anger management. In 2010, he was found guilty of two counts of criminal mischief stemming from an assault on a Post photographer.