Merger may not be the answer in cutting local government costs

[bob-loblaw]

Purple R it's quote the contrary. Small town govt with marginal checks & balances is what has fueled corruption for centuries in nj. Why do you think all of these small towns branched off of larger towns. Everyone has/had their hand in someone's pocket. While the legalities have changed (bribe taking is rare) other forms of legal corruption permeate small towns and boards across this state.

Govt jobs, jobs for families, pension boosting, etc. it's all a farce.

There's a lot of points in this thread that I really don't have time to read, so forgive me if this has already been stated - the premise of that article is shit. There is absolutely no logistical way that consolidation & shared services could long lead to a decrease in municipal expenses. Especially when jobs are consolidated.

The real culprit in NJ is the school boards. Most municipal taxes pale in comp to their school counterparts.

 

[NotInRHouse]

Article today on NJ.Com about the latest municipal ripoff. Our good and perpetually corrupt friends in Point Pleasant Beach, fresh off their appeals to the state legislature to get the right to levy more taxes and their unconstitutional gambit to bar outsiders from the town after midnight, have now been scolded by a superior court judge for ticketing people for putting their parking receipt on the wrong part of the dashboard. Yes, the town was ticketing people for having their parking receipt on the passenger, not the driver's side, when there was no signage about where it had to be.

The town's attorney said an appeal that only refunded the ticket for one driver was wasting the taxpayer's money. LOL.

Yes, wouldn't it be such a shame if this intrepid ticket handler was made redundant, and his municipal handlers as well, if the town was merged into Point Pleasant Borough? No money to be saved there...the poor towns people would lack services...

I just imagine, it would be like Fallujah out there, poor cops making 75k a year to have to look at the right AND left side of cars?!?! Is there no justice?!! End the chaos!!!!

 

[derleider]

Originally posted by NotInRHouse:
Article today on NJ.Com about the latest municipal ripoff. Our good and perpetually corrupt friends in Point Pleasant Beach, fresh off their appeals to the state legislature to get the right to levy more taxes and their unconstitutional gambit to bar outsiders from the town after midnight, have now been scolded by a superior court judge for ticketing people for putting their parking receipt on the wrong part of the dashboard. Yes, the town was ticketing people for having their parking receipt on the passenger, not the driver's side, when there was no signage about where it had to be.

The town's attorney said an appeal that only refunded the ticket for one driver was wasting the taxpayer's money. LOL.

Yes, wouldn't it be such a shame if this intrepid ticket handler was made redundant, and his municipal handlers as well, if the town was merged into Point Pleasant Borough? No money to be saved there...the poor towns people would lack services...

I just imagine, it would be like Fallujah out there, poor cops making 75k a year to have to look at the right AND left side of cars?!?! Is there no justice?!! End the chaos!!!!

But you havent pointed to any actual reasons to expect that the same crooked people wont just be crooked with a bigger budget. In fact logic dictates that the people who would get elected to county wide office, would be the ones who are crooked but more clever at covering it up.

Its not like these are one off instances. Its pretty much routine throughout the state. Why is the combined Point Pleasent likely to be any less corrupt and inefficient than the two separate entities? And being as corrupt and inefficient, why do you think they are just slashing inefficiency.

 

[NotInRHouse]

There's a couple of things:

- There would be less employees to be corrupt

- Some towns are more corrupt than others. Forcing the worst offenders- which BTW, seem to quite often be the small or donut towns, out of business would force those people to run for office with new constituents on a questionable record

- Bigger towns with bigger responsibilities have bigger fish to fry than parking receipt placement

What I said was abolishing towns with less than 50k people- PPB has 4665 people. You could probably merge all the beach towns along the coast there.

And who is being denied a service here- we're not dealing with say, someone blocking a driveway. This is a crime that has no victim yet people are being punished at their and the larger public's expense.

A town that runs from the Monmouth County border down to Seaside is just going to have bigger problems to deal with and will have to budget more wisely.

 

[PurpleR]

If you think there is more corruption in smaller towns than larger communities and levels of governments than we absolutely disagree on this issue. Short of anecdotal stories that are usually communicated by Governors and State Officials that would prefer to have you believe this because they would like to get their hands on everything so they push problems down hill and make sure the public dialogue supports this position. Give me some empirical evidence that this is true?

 

[retired711]

I have lived in six different states, and I would say that the greatest determinant of corruption is the state's culture. For instance, California has counties and small municipalities and there is little corruption at either level. That's because California's political culture does not accept it. Heck, attempt to pay off a policeman in California who gives you a ticket and you will be run in by the cop, who will be irate.

If there is any feature in NJ that's a problem, it is that local officials can also serve as state officials, and so there are often conflicts of interest. But I think culture is the chief criterion, and, unfortunately, New Jersey has a bad culture.

 

[NotInRHouse]

Yes the "double dippers" are grandfathered in some positions but not all.

I actually am not sure you could bribe a cop in NJ that easily but it probably depends on where and the violation. The thing is that NJ has quotas and the municipalities rely on the fundraising...err patrol...to stay in business and that is why they keep raising on fines on things...it's a self fulfilling prophecy...

I'm a pretty regular reader of the news and I have to say it does seem to me like the smaller towns in NJ are the worst offenders in terms of this stuff. Historic problems in places like Hudson County and Newark have been tamped down significantly since that big raid a few years ago. The main corruption centers IMO these days are Norcross alliances and the small towns, like Point Pleasant Beach and Helmetta that have basically been caught in the act of robbing the citizenry.

NJ's culture is a problem, but it's quite interesting because NJ actually functions well in some areas...for example the judiciary is pretty nationally respected. Again, I think it comes town to 565 governments in a very small geographic area.

 

[retired711]

Originally posted by NotInRHouse:
Yes the "double dippers" are grandfathered in some positions but not all.

I actually am not sure you could bribe a cop in NJ that easily but it probably depends on where and the violation. The thing is that NJ has quotas and the municipalities rely on the fundraising...err patrol...to stay in business and that is why they keep raising on fines on things...it's a self fulfilling prophecy...

I'm a pretty regular reader of the news and I have to say it does seem to me like the smaller towns in NJ are the worst offenders in terms of this stuff. Historic problems in places like Hudson County and Newark have been tamped down significantly since that big raid a few years ago. The main corruption centers IMO these days are Norcross alliances and the small towns, like Point Pleasant Beach and Helmetta that have basically been caught in the act of robbing the citizenry.

NJ's culture is a problem, but it's quite interesting because NJ actually functions well in some areas...for example the judiciary is pretty nationally respected. Again, I think it comes town to 565 governments in a very small geographic area.

Norcross controls the Camden and Gloucester boards of freeholders as surely as the small towns. At the same time, he does not control the towns in Camden County except for Camden itself.

All over the United States, people believe the cops have quotas. It's not peculiar to New Jersey.

 

[TonyLieske]

Not sure if you guys are serious or what.

I live in tiny town that happens to be Sweeney's district and can tell you he has absolutely no influence my town. NONE.

Unfortunately because I am in Gloucester County his cronies do get to feed at the expense of my property taxes, but that is a county issue, not a municipal issue (because a huge chunk of my property taxes go to the county and not my town). Merging our town into the county or whatever would give he and his friends MORE power, not less and would result in MORE corruption, not less.

 

[NotInRHouse]

Tony-

Have you looked over the contracts to see who your town uses for insurance? I would be shocked if they didn't place through Norcross' company.

Norcross pulls the levers for Sweeney, several other Dems, and for Christie.

 

[PurpleR]

Growing up I cannot remember a Mayor of Atlantic City not going to jail. Whelan may have been the first in my recollection not to head to jail during or after his term. It was a joke my father said that all mayors of Atlantic City must aspire to go to jail because that is where they end up and it was true. AC not a small town.

City of Camden has had a number of Mayors go to jail- not a small town.

City of Trenton- Mayor recently convicted is either in jail or on his way. not a small town

City of Newark- Sharpe James- spent 18 months in jail. not a small town

I realize this is not empirical evidence but I live in Burlington County and in the last 40 or 50 years I don't recall more than one or two mayors going to jail or being convicted of a crime that dealt with their official duties.

 

[NotInRHouse]

Atlantic City is 55 in population. They are not very big anymore. But I guess it depends on how you quantify it.

Point Pleasant Beach is 387 and Helmetta is 479.

But Lakewood which I mentioned before, is 7, and Edison is 5, and both have had issues with police for example.

 

[retired711]

Originally posted by NotInRHouse:
Tony-

Have you looked over the contracts to see who your town uses for insurance? I would be shocked if they didn't place through Norcross' company.

Norcross pulls the levers for Sweeney, several other Dems, and for Christie.

If all Norcross did was influence insurance contracts, no one would care about him. If that's the only effect he's having, it's not much. By contrast, Norcross does have effective control over county government in, as I say, Gloucester and Camden. And, as purpleR points out, it is just not true that small towns have the most corruption.

 

[NotInRHouse]

I'm using that as an example because I'm familiar with his agency and I know they have municipal clients. But those contracts do affect the citizens- someone is paying the premium.

There are many, many articles about the outsized influence Norcross has, but most of them tend to relate to even bigger fish like state agencies.

 

[retired711]

Originally posted by NotInRHouse:
I'm using that as an example because I'm familiar with his agency and I know they have municipal clients. But those contracts do affect the citizens- someone is paying the premium.

There are many, many articles about the outsized influence Norcross has, but most of them tend to relate to even bigger fish like state agencies.

If that's true, and I have no doubt it is, then it shows that someone like Norcross has even more influence over state than local government -- contrary to the thrust of your arguments.

 

[NotInRHouse]

There's multiple issues. There's the municipal level corruption, and there's the state agencies, the worst offender in some ways, the federally-established Port Authority of NY and NJ. Norcross is involved at all levels in South Jersey. Then you have the situation like we did post Sandy, where Christie was making sure Port Authority funds from Sandy were being squandered by double dipper Union City mayor and Christie ally Brian Stack. Union City sits on a bluff, had no funding, and has no Port Authority facilities- while Hoboken and Jersey City sat below, flooded and reliant on Port Authority facilities. This will hopefully be part of what the grand jury investigating Christie will be looking at.

The municipalities are certainly abusers, but they are aided and abetted, to be sure...

 

[NotInRHouse]

New NJ.Com article today. New Bayonne police chief makes 238k...more than Governor Christie or Bill Bratton, the NYC chief of police, never mind the JC chief of police...