Cranbury Forum | Bulletin | Info Sharing

Post a reply

Username

Subject

Message body

Emoticons

Font colour: Font size:

Close Tags

[quote="The Times"]Signs emerge that home rule is dying
The Times
Monday, July 21, 2008

There's reason to hope that New Jersey is losing some of its passion for home rule, which has left the state with the highest number of local-government units per square mile in the nation.

It's even possible that the next few years could see some municipal mergers. The past half-century saw none of any significance. 
 
The latest encouraging sign is a bill sponsored by Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, D-Bellmawr, a long-time hawk on municipal consolidation, to cut the Legislature out of the process that determines whether adjoining towns should consolidate to cut their costs and their property taxes.

His bill, A3119, also would give additional muscle to the brand-new Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission, which began its examination of local-government relationships and costs only three months ago.

At present, LUARC can only recommend specific mergers, with the Legislature having the final say on whether a proposal should be put to a vote in the towns involved. The Legislature, of course, has an infinite number of ways to stop sensible ideas in their tracks, and Roberts' bill would finesse that problem by authorizing LUARC to send its recommendations directly to local referendums.

To improve the chances that those referendums will pass, Roberts also proposes that the state reduce aid for a municipality that votes against a recommended consolidation. "If they want home rule, the state shouldn't have to prop them up," he told a Camden County audience last week.

Action at the State House to limit home rule has been mostly nonexistent up to now. A bill that would have given the state real power to expedite municipal mergers and shared services -- and to penalize holdouts with financial-aid cuts -- was offered by Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Middletown, during the Legislature's 2006 special session on property-tax reform. The Kyrillos bill, like other bold proposals in the special session, was watered down, and LUARC wound up having only a research and advisory role.

Even Joe Roberts, despite holding one of the three top elected offices in New Jersey, couldn't win support for his bill to give county school superintendents power to veto local school budgets and encourage school-district mergers. (Roberts did have some success, however, in modernizing and streamlining the law governing locally initiated municipal consolidations.)

But fiscal hardship could finally compel taxpayers to reassess their love for neighborhood government, a love that has stuck New Jersey with 566 towns, 616 school districts and 186 fire districts, along with the duplication of personnel and services that goes with such numbers.

Property taxes are becoming intolerably high in a lot of communities, and the state no longer has the wherewithal to ride to the rescue. A typical case is Mount Arlington in Morris County, where the mayor says "uncontrollable" costs are forcing a 43.6 percent hike in the municipal tax rate.

Last year, Mount Arlington residents strongly opposed a feasibility report's recommendation that they merge their police department with a neighboring town's. "Now we're having to pay the price," said Mayor Art Ondish, a merger proponent. The new municipal budget could change some minds in the borough.

Earlier this year, East Amwell, Lambertville and West Amwell announced plans to study a possible merger of their police operations. Some Hopewell Township officeholders have been talking lately about consolidation with the two boroughs embedded in the township, Pennington and Hopewell -- at least of some services, if not the towns themselves. There even are rumblings of another merger try in the Princetons, where borough voters have defeated four such efforts since 1953. 
 
To those home-rule diehards who fear that uniting their towns with their neighbors will erase the towns' distinct characters, take heart. It hasn't happened elsewhere.

Lawrenceville is part of Lawrence Township, but it remains an identifiable community with a universally known name. Ask Hamilton Township residents where they live and they'll respond with answers like Yardville, Mercerville, Groveville or Hamilton Square.

Hightstown would still be Hightstown if it merged with East Windsor, but the residents would save money on police, public works and other services that now are duplicated. There would be similar outcomes in Pennington and Hopewell Borough if they joined with Hopewell Township.

Obviously, each potential merger of towns or services is different, and there would have to be demonstrable long-term economies before any consolidation was authorized. Examining the facts in specific cases, and establishing general benchmarks for comparing the quality and costs of services, is the job currently being done by LUARC.

Jack Fisher, LUARC's chairman, told The Inquirer he anticipates controversy when his group finally makes its recommendations. "We need some bold initiatives to break out of the pattern we've been in for years and years," he said. He's committed to getting the job done, no matter how difficult, he added.

Joe Roberts' bill, if it's enacted into law, will improve the chances of success.[/quote]

Options
HTML is ON
BBCode is ON
Smilies are ON

	Disable HTML in this post
	Disable BBCode in this post
	Disable Smilies in this post