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.

100 days, 100 nights

When exactly did the 100-day mark become such a touchstone for a presidency? Am I right in not remembering the media — newspapers, TV, cable — making this kind of fuss at the 100-day mark of the Clinton of Bush presidencies?

A presidential term is four years long — 1,461 days — and judging a presidency on its first 100 seems absurd. I know that Franklin Roosevelt managed quite a bit in his first 100; John Kennedy’s first 100 were botched. Barack Obama seems to be doing fairly well, even if he is far more of a centrist than many of his supporters realized.

The issue is not where we stand on April 29 — that has more to do with the media’s Roosevelt fetish and its “new FDR” narrative — but where we go between now and the first Tuesday in November 2012. That’s when the Obama presidency can really be judged.

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Awash in cash

I’ve written about this before — ad nauseum — but this story out of Robbinsville only reinforces my conviction that campaign finance reforms must include local elections.

Too many towns in the state — Monroe, South Brunswick and North Brunswick, for instance — have become one-party enclaves thanks to the ability of the majority party to raise and spend money on their campaigns.

The money, because it comes from private donors who often plan to do business in the community, can seem as if it has strings attached. The impression that leavse is corrosive to public trust.

Just as importantly, the ability to use a campaign warchest to outspend an opponent into oblivion, to crush entire party apparatus under the weight of money, limits debate, freezing out the arguments and proposals that might be offered by the minority party/challenging candidates.

I don’t want this to imply a judgment of the candidates who have the money — the rules are the rules and that discussion is for another day. It is the system that is corrupt and must be changed, as David Donnelly of the Public Campaign Action Fund told me last week. As he put it, “It is the system that should be indicted.”

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Will the Princetons be a test case on consolidation?

Consolidation of the two Princetons is back on the table.

Members of the governing bodies of both towns — along with numerous residents — appear ready to move ahead with a study, despite a history of failed consolidation attempts. At a Monday meeting on the issue, even people who in the past opposed a merger said they were ready to investigate — even if they were not ready to take a position on consolidation.

Borough Councilman David Goldfarb, a past opponent of full municipal consolidation, said, “We should move ahead very carefully, make sure we are all on the same page before we move on to the next step, and don’t make any assumptions.”

Mr. Goldfarb said, “I think we can go forward with the next two or three steps without throwing the c-word in front of everybody and getting an uproar and having everybody taking sides.”

Such a discussion — occurring at a time when the governor is pushing for more shared services and potential municipal and school consolidations — could help frame the debate statewide. The issues — cost savings and services, debt, identity and representation — are the same ones that pop up in every discussion.

And while the Princetons already share more services than most communities — there are probably 20 or so agencies and commissions that operate jointly, including the Planning Board, tax assessment and collection, the Board of Health, the library and the school district — there remains plenty of other areas that could result in savings. Most notable, of course, is the existence of two separate police departments, one of the largest costs incurred by any municipality.

There is no doubt that New Jersey has too many layers of government (can we reform the counties?) and too many municipalities (566!) and school districts (611!) and that we need to streamline. It will require municipal mergers, school regionalization and other changes.

Critics of consolidation dispute this assertion, which is why the Princeton discussion is likely to have implications well beyond the township’s borders (the township is the doughnut that completely surrounds the borough) and even beyond Mercer County and central New Jersey.

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What happened to the weather?

So, we go from four or five days of early summer — temperatures in the 80s (and even the low 90s) — to an unseasonable 57 degrees (according to the dashboard thermometer). I know it's April, but come on. I mean, can we keep the temperature swings to 25 degrees from day to day? I don't think that's asking too much.

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless LGVX9900 device.

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