There are a lot of towns out there that are not going to be happy with municipal consolidation legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, but someone had to put this issue on the table.
The reality is that we cannot continue to function in a state as small as New Jersey, with 8 million people and a badly busted fiscal situation unless we reduce the number of towns. There are 566 in New Jersey, 611 school districts, 21 counties and numerous other tax districts. Many do not need to exist.
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
View all posts by hankkalet
Hank Kalet 
Absotively.
Living in a doughnut hole myself, I\’d love to stay our own small town but I\’m very well aware that we\’ll probably end up consolidating someday. However, the biggest problem with the Gov\’s proposal last year and some other proposed ideas- they punish the small town if it doesn\’t consolidate, but there is no mention of the big town that may not want to take us on. The larger townships have all the bargaining power and are given no incentive to even come to the table to negotiate, let alone a punishment such as a huge cut in state aid (which has been proposed to the small towns who do not consolidate.) It\’s all stick for the little borough, no carrot or stick for the big township. Until there\’s significant financial advantage to the large township to consolidate, the litte boroughs will continue to be stuck in the middle.