When Mikie Sherrill proposed lowering the annual income limit for Stay NJ eligibility from $500,000 to $250,000, Jack Curtis had a quick observation.

"Jack Curtis loses his $6,500 tax break while Donald Trump gets to keep his $257,000 property tax break on his exclusive Bedminster Country Club."

Trump is not alone. Curtis has identified such other New Jersey luminaries as Bruce Spingsteen and Woody Johnson who also get generous property tax breaks.

All this has to do with farmland assessment, which is something Curtis has been talking, or perhaps screaming, about for some time.

The facts are clear. In an effort to retain farms in a rapidly developing state, New Jersey back more than 60 years ago adopted a farmland assessment program.

If you own five or more acres and produce at least $1,000 worth of farm products a year, you qualify for a property tax break of about 98 percent on your land. Your house is excluded.

There are obvious problems here.

The threshold of $1,000 worth of products is exceptionally low. What's more, Curtis says he discovered owners do not have to document the products they sell with receipts. It's all on the honor system. Really?

So, Trump, Springsteen, Johnson and other very wealthy people living on large estates have no trouble meeting the five-acre and $1,000 threshold. And they get a great property tax benefit.

"Fake farmers" is the name Curtis gives them.

Curtis was a Republican alderman in Dover, Morris County, and a school teacher/administrator in Roxbury before retiring a few years ago.

Now living in Mendham Township, Curtis has made a retirement career of sorts condemning "fake farms" and lobbying to change the requirements.

His new hometown gives him plenty of fodder. Conducting a tour of the affluent and bucolic township a while back, Curtis said he has identified 155 "farms."  And he calculated that the owners of those farms avoided about $1.1 million in property taxes.

That money, he says, is made up by him and others in town who do not own farms - fake or otherwise.

Curtis' campaign got the attention of Phil Murphy and he was invited to then-governor's State of the State address in 2025. Murphy complimented Curtis and gave him a shout-out.

That was it. Nothing really changed.

Curtis understands. He knows the super-wealthy who operate "fake farms" are often generous campaign contributors to politicians on both sides of the aisle.

But he perseveres.

After he saw Sherrill propose lowering the Stay NJ eligibility limit, Curtis saw opportunity.

Why doesn't the governor support changing the farmland assessment rules as well? Curtis figures that would help everyone who pays property taxes and also force the super-rich to pay more.

To that end, he met this week with members of the Sherrill Administration.

Curtis comes prepared. He said he handed over a 50-page booklet on farmland assessment, which he hopes finds its way to the governor.

It included a drawing of a cow and a man holding a bag of money. The caption read:

"Real Farmers Milk Cows. Fake Farmers Milk The System."