Mayor Picard's plan for West Haven back in 2003

While researching older New Haven Register articles about John Picard to try to verify comments having been made in the Haverstraw blog post, I came across an interesting article from 9/6/2003 entitled "Picard releases plan for West Haven".

The statement that sticks out is the first one:

The key to a successful economic-development plan is to reduce the city’s high taxes and burgeoning debt.

High taxes just got higher here... reducing the mill rate isn't reducing taxes when you revalue property.

Mayor Picard also claims in the article that we had a $200M deficit (compared to Mayor Borer's assertion that we had a $150M deficit). With that, I can't see how he could claim surprise at the current situation.

(edited later to add the following)

Taking this back a little further, to July 1, 2003, and "Picard slams leaders on highter tax bills", claiming "Not only did the mayor’s proposed budget call for a tax increase, the Morrissey-controlled City Council added an even greater increase." He goes on to slam Morrissey for doing nothing to cut back spending by saying:

"Chairman Morrissey did absolutely nothing to cut back the mayor’s proposed spending plan," Picard said, charging that Morrissey "was more interested in who would get new jobs vacated by retiring city workers than he was in lessening the burden on city taxpayers."

Is the pot calling the kettle black?