Tiny Towns in N.J. May Have to Merge

Source: Washington Post

MOONACHIE, N.J. -- Driving down County Road 503, if you blink, you might miss this borough.

There's East Rutherford, then Carlstadt, then Moonachie, then -- whoosh-- faster than the car radio can play the latest hit single, you're in Little Ferry, the next borough over. That's four boroughs in one song. You pass through Moonachie during the refrain.

Moonachie is small: about 2,700 residents. That's smaller than some New York apartment complexes. That's just one-seventh of the seating capacity of the arena at Madison Square Garden.

That's too small, says New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D).

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/22/AR2008032201115.html?nav=rss_world

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The Governor is wrong to take this path.

The article brings out what the small towns do that also dispute the Governor reasonings.


Corzine previously presided over mergers and acquisitions as chairman of Goldman Sachs.

I don't think much of people in mega companies. If anything, they have made it worse for everyone.

it should have been handled far differently.

It breaks my heart to think that if you don't live a certain way, you don't count in this country.

This is just simply wrong.

This state is completely out of control.

As others are pointing out, it's the services that kill. Consolidate schools, police, sewer, water, etc. and get savings. None of that requires giving up a small town's identity - though I doubt many in NJ are holding onto that these days, anyway. Home is starting to look like one big ("luxury") condo development, broken up by strip malls full of chain stores now...

especially the schools.

In my NJ small town, the school is really central to so much that we do.

And small schools seem to help our kids. In cities they are trying to break up the big schools to make them about our size.

My son walks to the park and meets up with friends to play touch football.

Once a year on labor day we have a big party complete with a carnival, parade and fireworks.

There are well attended community events throughout the year of all kinds - all small and amateurish but very warm and sweet.

We are holding on to our small town pretty tight, thank.

actual schools stay small and local. (I agree, that's best - I'm no fan of huge schools, either).

Police -- I see no reason to be concerned there. Less chance of cronism, it seems to me.

We've got many small towns here in CT. They take their character from who lives there, from the architecture, from the fairs they hold... not from their police dept.!

My old town in NJ is only pop. 5,000. willl this happen to them? Fema just gave them 1 MIL for rebuilding dams after the flood in 2004. The cost of t he rebuild is actually 10 Mil. They have also been slapped with a 1 Mil lawsuit from the towns downstream which were devistated by that flood.!
AM I ever glad I live in a small town in Maine now, pop 1,200. with a Town Manager/Police chief who reminds me of Andy Griffith.
Yes we have small town gossip, feuds, etc. but I feel safe here!
REMEMBER CORZINE has attended the Bilderberg! He is connected to the International elite!

Many of these little towns have their own police force. Now, in most cases, these police forces have a chief or director who suffers from the disease of "Empire Building". That means they are obsessive about growing the force to the size of a small nation's army, only with more rolling stock. NJ police officers are some of the highest paid in the nation, and vehicles ain't getting cheaper, either. This has resulted in thinly-veiled chaos on our roads, since driving without getting a ticket is a near-impossible task.

Also, all these little towns have the rest of the service infrastructure a municipality needs and the personel to go with it. It's expensive and inefficient.

Taxes and fees to fund this all are strangling NJ. People are moving out by the droves, as they can no longer afford to live here. Property taxes are some of the highest in the nation.

We have to do something, and breking up these "Postage Stamp Empires" is one of the least onerous ways to start to fix things.

Next step and one that would save a lot of money would be to take a long hard look at the huge army that is The New Jersey State Police. Average troopers make over $US100,000/yr with a benefits package that would be good on Wall Street, not to mention the fact that being a trooper or a member of a trooper's family largely delivers immunity from the vast majority of laws that nettle the average citizen.

The money NJ State Police make is outrageous.

From the article many of those of small towns double up or triple up on town functions with little pay.

If there is an abuse by local law enforcement then they should be appointed by the town council or elected executive. Most small towns under 5,000 here in Indiana contract with the Sheriff to patrol their town.

They are largely political positions and the departments perform forclosure sales, transport prisoners and serve paper. They look and dress like cops but have little or no enforcement function. They do, however have big budgets and hefty infrastructures, for empire building lives in them as well.

This "home rule" thing is a trope. The fact is that these "wide spots in the road" that masquerade as towns here work very well as political springboards and nexuses for the accrual of political power and influence through the power of the budget. Also, some of these towns have very shady relationships with their contractors, building contractors and the myriad "consultants" that have cropped up, since the time-honored practice of "wheeling" is well-represented in NJ.

Case in point: Back in the early 70's, there was the Warren County town of Washington, a sizable chunk of real estate. A bunch of people got together and spun off a new municipality called "Washington Township" that is a donut around the borough of Washington. Why? Because they wanted their own bailywick. Now, the township has one of New Jersey's great empire-builders as police chief. The police and public works departments are both huge, the township is a notorious speed/driving offense trap and they have more vehicles than an army division, with new ones coming in every year. Hemi Chargers are the newest fashion, along with their many SUV's.

Now, although there is still two municipalities, Twonship and Borough police are again interchangable. You can find either anywhere in the area, due to a foggy "agreement". But consolidate? No way, jose. Too much political power to be wielded. To many budget dollars to hand out. Can't be giving that up.

This sort of thing repeats across the state. As I said, things are out of control.

And be strict about it.

the infrastructure and cost of keeping up a town like Moonachie
to a town like Riverdale.....
or any of the small towns up rt. 23 and down in mid-Jersey....

its two totally different cans of worms......

this is going to be bad
and I think some more thought should be put into it.....

lost

I live in Oklahoma, and many of the same things are happening here. Many small towns are losing their police forces due to financial issues, and some of them are so close to a "big city" that there will undoubtedly be overflow crime spilling into their areas.

Every day I feel more and more that this country is going to collapse at any minute.

guard their independence and identity. But in some cases, I think most of the polic work is done by the state police. Other municipal services could easily be managed by a consortium of towns, w/o the towns having to give up their unique identities, I think.

My town has several "villages" contained within it - that also seems pretty common here in CT.

many small towns have only a "resident" state trooper... I grew up in Cromwell, and even when it had 6,000 or so people, we only had a resident state trooper. However, as soon as they hit a certain population number, the police force exploded in size and they ended up with over 50 cops and a police HQ by the time the population was a little over 10,000... which is way more expensive than a resident state trooper.

I can agree with you on the outrageous taxes - I live in Connecticut, which also gets complaints on the high cost of living, but I was looking at homes only a little more expensive than our current home in CT and the property taxes were at least double, and sometimes triple, what we're paying now... like $8,000 vs $15,000 to $25,000.

And, homes in lower fairfield county in CT have even lower tax rates than what we pay in the Hartford area.

But they just passed a new law to shift about a 1/3 of those taxes to the state level. And then effective April 1 the sales tax will jump from 6% to 7%. In addition, any municipality needing to will have increase the local income tax which could be as high as 2% from the previous max of 1%.

Guess what. Sure our property taxes will go down. BUT all it does is shift the taxes from property taxes to the newer taxes. AND many will end up paying more in taxes then before. Except for those buy more expensive properties.

AND for those that itemize on their federal tax returns they will not be able to include what they pay in additional sales taxes if they itemize their property and income taxes.

Those who aren't home owners, but still need to buy stuff - like clothes and food?

Because sales taxes and myriad fees are regressive by nature. Here in NJ, you have people living in near-million dollar homes, who have seen the value of their homes grow by leaps and bounds, yet do not want to pay taxes that reflect their value. But beat up on the poor or those who live in apartments? Sure. Let those people carry their baggage. That's fine. Just like the seniors who complain, with nauseating regularity, about paying school taxes.

Remember the unofficial NJ Motto: "Go Fuck Yourself!". The people in this state cannot even understand the critical necessity of protecting the northern watershed. They just complain and scream "Communists!". Warren County is presently spending over a million dollars to fight the watershed protection act, which has stopped sprawl in its tracks.

Wow. That might (and I haven't been up that way in a while, really) be one of the last parts of the state not inundated with development, wouldn't it? (Well, maybe the far southwest corner along the Delaware...).

Should it all look like just one big NY and Philly burb? I really cannot believe how crowded Monmouth Cty - where I'm from - has gotten!

It had to be done. Things had spiraled completely out of control. But here in Warren County, our three freeholders have vested interests: two are large landowners and one is a developer. So they spend the county's money to essentially benefit their own situations.

Of course, those with the temerity to point those yucky facts out are considered quite mad. It really is through the looking glass around here.

eyebrow or two - the conflict of interest seems pretty obvious.

There's that nuclear power plant in Salem!

I guess I was looking at the map and thinking south of there - opposite the southern shore points. At least on a map, it doesn't look like much is developed there yet.

CT uses a weird percentage of actual value to come up with assessed value. Like 30-40% of actual or estimated sales value.

When I looked at NJ, the assessed value was a lot closer to the actual value houses were selling at.

As an example, our house in CT is probably worth a little over $600K if we sold it, and has property taxes of $8,000... homes only slightly more expensive in Northern NJ had property taxes in that $15,000 to $25,000 range.

Homes in lower Fairfield County of CT in the $700-$800,000 price range will have property taxes in the $7,000 to $9,000 range.

Back in '79, when I lived in Medford LAkes on the edge of the pine Barrens. I went to San Francisco to visit a cousin, was overwhelmed by California.! I came home with books on the houses of SF, the beuties of the entire state, etc.
I went to a book store in NJ looking for a book with the outstanding features of the state; ( most of them gone at this point)
The Wading River where I went tubing on SUndays, the Del Water Gap, the beaches............ the Farm Land.

THE ONLY BOOK? The History of the NJ State Police!!!!!!

The EX Garden State................

SOME OF THE BEST FARMING SOIL & WEATHER CONDITIONS IN THE ENTIRE USA!

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's father came back from a foreign trip, praising a police force he saw there to the highest heavens. He went on to form the NJSP and fashion it just like that police force, right down to the cut of the uniform and shape of the hat.

The time: The 1930's

Country visited: Germany

Police force: The Gestapo

and not in a positive way, lol!

Where did you find your info? Do you have a link?

Was an NJSP Det. Sgt. 1st Class. He told me. He was slightly less enamoured of them than I was. He could not wait to make 25 and get out. At the time, steroids were raging in the ranks and it scared him to death.

Shit, I'm in the wrong line of work.

Of course, my line of work has a much reduced risk of getting shot at - it's not a zero risk, but not like being a cop.

Still, I have a graduate degree and make less than half what you say a NJ state trooper makes.

At least I still sorta like what I do for a living...

Corzine is an idiot on this one. As the article points out these small municipalities are typical in most of the Northeast and many have histories going back to the Colonial Era. It's a large part of the reason that the Northeast is so fiercely involved politically, because everything matters at the local level.

in the towns if they want to merge.

Ask anybody who lives in NJ what they hate the most. The answer will probably be the taxes, property taxes in particular. Then ask how to cut taxes. Reduce fraud, welfare, and waste are the most popular answers. Just don't try it...

I live in the heart of the insanity called NJ's home rule. Everybody loves it. The small towns, the many fiefdoms, and the huge expense. Here in Bergen County there are 70+ municipalities, many downright tiny. They all have their own police, fire, public works, etc. Most have their own tiny school districts, complete with all the administrative overhead. The redundancy and waste is staggering. Plus there is a county layer on top of it all.

So Bergen County has more fire equipment than does NYC, for a fraction of the fires and a significantly smaller population. We have county police making more than $100K each. Compare that to a NYC cop. Most municipal departments have high pay scales and after 20 years there is a plush pension.

There are three towns in my immediate vicinity know as the "FLOW" district. If I'm counting correctly there are a dozen or so schools and a total of four superintendents. Who knows how many redundant administrators there are. We have a regional high school district, all of two schools. The superintendent makes in excess of $225K a year in salary and goodies! Much more than the superintendent in nearby Paterson, NJ which is your typical decaying, post-industrial city with mind-boggling social, economic, and educational problems.

There have been a few attempts to merge police departments. Each has created a firestorm. The whole idea of consolidation is radioactive as people go nuts at the thought of their kingdom being dismantled.

Yes there are some cooperative buying agreements that no doubt help control costs but do nothing to address the gross inefficiencies that are so glaring.

I think the people who bitch the most at consolidation proposals are likely the ones who complain most about the high property tax burden. I see no chance for consolidation, it just makes too much sense.

And Bergen County is especially bad with this stuff. Why? Because both Chairman Joe or whomever is his Repuke counterpart know that more towns mean more votes to keep them in power and handing out the patronage and "pay to play" admission tickets.

Warren County has the same sort of deal, albeit with the Dems having been out of power for so long that they don't have a patronage/pay to play infrastructure in place. If they tried to start building one at present, it would only serve to provide comedy gold. Besides, the present Dem County Chairman, Mike Sedita, ain't that kind of animal. He's a good man, good DFA'er. That said, the repukes who run the county have a rich, deep and unfettered patronage and wheeling machine in place which enriches an army of "consultants" and lawyers and fattens their party coffers through wheeling. Most towns are run by the repukes, since the people here are largely dead stupid and think that repukes are holding down their taxes. Of course, it's a 3-Card-Monte game and they are losing, but they are too dense to accept the clear and simple proof of the shuck and jive they are swallowing.

The NJ Democratic Committee ignores Warren County like it is a leper colony. Literally, some of them don't know where Warren County is. Really.

The political trope of "Home Rule" is the bedrock of these political machines that go along their merry way, unfettered and unmolested.

And why possibly they are lower.

When there is discussion it needs to include the pros and cons and what would be the best balance for the community/state as far as services.

One of the big reasons is that other states have not institutionalized huge, incredibly-equipped police forces, largely to use them as revenue accrual mechanisms. Go over the line into PA, and law enforcement is not intrusive and visually universal. They live well over there and have far lower taxes.

Law Enforcement Agencies, in NJ, are incredibly rapacious beasts. They are beastly expensive and constantly looking to expand. The first 26 miles of Route 80, coming into NJ, you can walk on the top of state police cruisers. The density is often one every two miles. No joke. The state police gets EVERYTHING it wants. Why? Well, some say it is because they have long employed the tactics of J. Edgar Hoover, using intelligence accrued on lawmakers as a lever in negotiations at budget time. A well-placed wink, nod or bon mot, dropped at the right time, is powerful juju.

Another thing to remember is that some of these small towns keep their tax rates down by having no services. No police, fire, rescue squad, road department, anon. The essentially leech off of the state police and the services of surrounding towns and the county. Then they crow about how they keep the taxes under control and get re-elected.

What is the population for the county?

How many school districts and number of students served in each district?

70 municipalities? Geesh

247 square miles, 234 square miles of land.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_County,_New_Jersey

i would have had no idea, but that stuff sounds crazy.

they tried to push for incorporation in the 64K unincorporated area i currently reside, but i and the majority here were not for it. i thought it was positively wasteful, because we already get so much protection from the Alameda county sheriff -- i mean, where else can they go? most other places are incorporated. and Alameda already has to cover expenses for our street lights and road maintenance; i've noticed we have better road and light maintenance than other nearby incorporated cities, as well.

so as of yet i'm not sold on the idea of rampant incorporation for communities. it seemed too much like a little political game among contractors and petty wannabe-tyrants. i just saw no value going down that road.

looking at New Jersey now, i see a cautionary tale.

I can tell you that it would be difficult for say, Ridgewood, to incorporate its next-door neighbors, with the possible exception of Ho Ho Kus, which is quite small, and much like Ridgewood itself.

Ridgewood incorporating Midland Park? No way. The map I linked to makes Midland Pk appear very small, but it's way too big for an already large village like Ridgewood to take on.

Rochelle Park and Maywood could be merged, though they're divided by Route 4. Westwood and Emerson could be merged. Northvale and Rockleigh should be merged.

They either need to merge, or merge their services all together. The key is to make sure everything is well run and efficient. So much money could be saved, by NJ taxpayers, if they merged the smaller towns school, fire and police services.

to merge.

Would make the best fit for the brains of a lot of the people running these towns. That said, both school systems and police forces are such nexuses of accrued political power and influence, and such ripe opportunities for consolidation, that they will be where the greatest tension will take place.

What we really need in NJ is a constitutional convention. Sadly, neither party wants anything to do with that idea. Once again, control of the purse strings is real power and they do not wish to give up one iota of that.

There are many patrionage jobs to be had, at the local level. Local politicians are not going to easily give that up.

People don't like the idea, but Gov. Corzine is being realistic. We fund schools, police, fire, roads and other public services in our towns and cities with tax revenues. This isn't a problem while the economy is booming. However, when there is an economic downturn, as the one we are in right now, all public services suffer because businesses collapse, people lose their jobs, and tax revenues go unpaid.

If this economic downturn is prolonged, as things appear to be going, towns, cities and even states and nations are going to be unable to maintain the present level of services they provide to their citizens, and will have to severely cut back their services. Consolidation of local governments at regional levels (i.e. City-County consolidations such as Miami-Dade or Louisville-Jefferson, Multi-County metropolitan governments such as NYC) are going to become much more the rule than the exception over the next 10 to 15 years. Emerging regional cooperative agreements in metropolitan regions such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati will probably form the basis for new regional governments.

Even State governments may be forced to consolidate in order to maintain services. I could easily see, for instance, North Dakota and South Dakota merging within the next decade. Perhaps this will also be the fate of several of the New England states, given their small size. And who says that cities can't or won't absorb states? Washington D.C. both culturally and economically already extends into Maryland and Norther Virginia. Why not take it one step further and extend the city's formal boundaries? And New Jersey is pretty much a part of New York City as it is. Consolidating the two, plus the counties in NYC's extended metropolitan area may not seem like such a far-fetched idea in a few years. It may be a necessity.

In general I agree with you that there are potential cost savings in consolidation. But then I look at nearby Chicago and their large tax rates with armies of political shovel leaners and I'm kinda skeptical. Consolidation CAN yield savings. In the end people have to insist on performance from municipal employees.


Even State governments may be forced to consolidate in order to maintain services. I could easily see, for instance, North Dakota and South Dakota merging within the next decade. Perhaps this will also be the fate of several of the New England states, given their small size. And who says that cities can't or won't absorb states? Washington D.C. both culturally and economically already extends into Maryland and Norther Virginia. Why not take it one step further and extend the city's formal boundaries? And New Jersey is pretty much a part of New York City as it is. Consolidating the two, plus the counties in NYC's extended metropolitan area may not seem like such a far-fetched idea in a few years. It may be a necessity.

I profoundly doubt this. These territories are so vast that I don't see any possible consolidation. Nextdoor municipalities are good candidates for consolidation. County/Government mergers like Indianapolis are just admissions of something that is already true. The economic systems are linked and someone needs to try to manage it. Here in NW Indiana we have a strip of cities spanning two counties along the lakefront that are economically integrated. Many of the smaller ones could easily merge to achieve efficiency. But to the south there are rural communities that are better off towns with police protection coming from the county.

But of course you look at the largest city in Northwest Indiana and you say hmmm.... Gary is not a model of efficiency.

and decide to "merge" into a super entities.

I live in one of them, Dumont, population 17,000, 1.1 square miles. There are 75 others in my county and virtually all have their own police chiefs (making $120,000+), fire departments, superintendents of schools (making $150,000+), school systems (2/3 of our local tax dollars) courts, judges, prosecutors, town attorneys, sanitation departments and on and on and on. The result? Taxes are the highest in the nation - mine are over $12,000. People at retirement age must move out of the area. Young people cannot afford to buy homes here.

The only thing crazier is the immediate outrage generated by consolidation proposals. McNerney made one a month or so ago...it was DOA. A couple years ago, there was the Emerson police merger which generated incredible outrage. Then there was the recent failed deal for Bergen County to take over Lodi's police dept.

Funny thing is a hundred years ago there were far fewer towns. Ho-ho-kus was huge, encompassing all the way up through what is now Mahwah. I think it was the school issue that drove the breakups. The plethora of superintendents is the wackiest. Somebody should add up the loaded cost of just the school superintendents in Bergen County. It would boggle the mind. You get off cheap in Dumont. The super of Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional (a very stressful job managing two schools) makes $220K+ a bunch of extras.

Just try and suggest districts combine and you'll be all but tarred and feathered. But people love to bitch and moan about their property taxes....

Dumont High School has a student body of less than 900 students. It would make more sense for Dumont students to attend Northern Valley Regional High in Demarest.

Years ago kids from Haworth, Cresskill, Harrington Park and some other towns all went to Dumont HS. But of course you're right. A few years ago in Dumont a bond ordinance was passed by the voters including, among other things, adding a new gym on one of our schools, Lincoln School, K-4, that only has less than 150 students. The damned school should have been closed and instead they spent over a million dollars improving it.

A small town is 200 or less.

:D

Of course our small towns have no services of any kind or operate on a volunteer basis.

I'm glad the Governor is pushing this. Governors since Whitman have been encouraging this strategy.

From the article: "Gibbsboro pays a single trash collector $10 an hour for garbage collection and shoulders no costs for health insurance or a pension."

This is supposedly an 'advantage' of the small town - employees making minimum wage with no health insurance.

From the article: "It hires police officers straight out of the state academy and pays them $12.50 an hour; they usually stay two years in the borough to get on-the-job experience before moving on."

An entire police force of rookies making just above minimum wage. Excellent!

Progressives should support consolidating these tiny towns.