Talking to municipal officials as the gubernatorial election wound down, I was struck by how many of them viewed Chris Christie as an ally in their attempts to beat back the tides of change. Forget the affordable housing issue, for a second, on which he does appear ready to make suburban mayors happy. It is on consolidation — or, to be more precise, in opposition to consolidation — that many mayors and others were looking with optimism toward the now-governor-elect.
Talk to officials from many of the region’s towns and you discover rather quickly that they think there is too much government, just not at the home office. So, they look to the state for cash, but refuse to do what is necessary to streamline the state’s confusing web of government entities.
Corzine, in a small way, put the issue on the table; Christie avoided it, but sent signals that he was with the towns.
And now the former U.S. Attorney is the governor-elect, we have a better handle on where he stands on what may be the most important issue he could face. During a speech at the state League of Municipalities today,
Christie delivered a forceful speech in which he said he would use “every tool at my disposal to force change.”
“The people of the state of New Jersey will no longer stand for us asking, ‘What’s in it for me,'” he said at the luncheon at the annual League of Municipalities convention. “I believe the message from this last election, the message to me and to (Lt. Gov-elect) Kim Guadagno, is we have to start asking what’s in it for us. And what is in it for us is a period of continued pain, continued difficulty and continued challenge.”
The state has become a “patchwork of ‘what’s in it for me'” over the years, Christie said. “That attitude is no longer acceptable to the people of this state,” he said in a warning tone.
Though he never said the words “shared services” or “consolidation,” that’s the message the municipal leaders in the room said they heard.
“We’re talking about possible layoffs and consolidations that we’d prefer not to do,” said Ellen Dickson, president of Summit Common Council. “It’s going to be very painful but we have to do it or else the state will be unlivable.”
Are we looking at something analagous to Bill Clinton and welfare reform, or Ronald Reagan and nuclear weapons? A Republican president never could have pushed through the draconian reforms enacted by Clinton. It also is likely that a more dovish president than Reagan would have had difficulty selling anti-nuke efforts that Reagan pushed through.
In this case, Christie is perceived as a friend of the suburbs, unlike Corzine, so he might not stir up the kind of almost paranoid opposition to consolidation we’ve been hearing for a while. Let’s see where this goes.
Hank Kalet 