OK, so I’m blowing my own horn, but I took two awards for the The South Brunswick Post in the annual Suburban Newspaper Association contest (national contest): honorable mention for editorial writing and second place for column writing.
More on this when I get back to the office — I’ll include links to the awards.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
A baseball stadium that had been proposed for Monroe appears a no-go. Or, perhaps it remains a live proposition — I guess it depends on whom you talk with.
We talked (meaning The Cranbury Press) with the township, who says the ballpark is off the table, and Steve Kalafer, owner of the Somerset Patriots and prospective owner of the new Monroe team, who says it is still alive.
But we didn’t talk with Jack Morris of Edgewood Properties, who owns the site. It’s not because we didn’t try. We probably left a dozen messages at either his real estate firm or the PR firm that represents him starting on Tuesday — but as of late Thursday, we hadn’t received word back.
So, the ballpark plan, as our headline says, is in limbo.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
South Brunswick Township Manager Matt Watkins is going to unveil his budget to the Township Council on Tuesday (the manager writes the budget under this form of government, and the council reviews and revises it). Specifics on the spending plan will not be available until then, but we are hopeful that the manager will opt for the most conservative of budgets.
Our suggestion is to find a way to keep spending flat. Admittedly, that is not an easy task. But the township has been spending more than it has been taking in over the last few years, a trend that needs to be reversed if the council is to keep local taxes managable.
Just as importantly, the council needs to reduce its reliance on surplus — its savings. It is OK to use surplus as revenue in a budget, provided you know that you will be generating at least as much new surplus as you use over the coming year. The opposite has been the case in recent years, and it has resulted in several larger-than-desired tax increases.
Doing both of these things does not necessarily mean the township can avoid a tax increase — reducing surplus use will mean reduced revenue, which would have to be made up another revenue, most likely taxes — but it will help put in place a more solid budgetary foundation for the future.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
I’ve been saying this for years:
At the heart of the matter is a simple math problem: the average cost of educating a child in New Jersey is $12,981, while the median property tax bill is $5,352, according to Census data. Although our property taxes are the highest in the nation, they can’t even begin to cover the cost of educating one child. And state aid for education fails to make up for this shortfall.
The result? Most Garden State towns make the economically rational choice to zone out housing for families with children. What’s favored instead is high-end or senior housing and commercial properties, because this kind of development brings in higher tax revenue and fewer demands for local services. This is why New Jersey has so many McMansions and malls, and not nearly enough homes that working families can afford.
Property taxes put towns in the position of chasing ratables. Commercial development decisions are based on how much in taxes the proposed business will pay and not on other economic issues — like putting jobs where they are needed — helping to promote sprawl and guarantee that jobs leave the cities. So we end up busing people from Trenton and New Brunswick up Route 130 to the warehouse zones in South Brunswick and Cranbury to jobs that local residents either do not need or would not consider. The process also short-circuits redevelopment, encouraging warehouses and corporate parks to move to formerly rural areas where taxes are lower.
The solution? There are several, including relying less on property taxes and more on the income tax, some for of tax-base sharing, increasing state aid to school and so on.
It is just another reason why the debate over taxes in Trenton is the single-most important issue of the year in New Jersey.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Steve Adubato has a good post on PoliticsNJ:
Here’s the deal. If New Jersey citizens rightfully demand that property taxes either be reduced or at least kept where they are, something has got to give. Tough choices must be made. But those tough choices can’t only come from Trenton. Legislators and the governor can’t get it done alone. Local officials, as well as citizens in those communities, must decide what they really want. It’s simple math. If local officials are right, that the only way to keep property tax increases to four percent or less is to slash local services, citizens must decide if that is what they want. If that is not what they want, then there is no reasonable expectation that property taxes will go down.
If citizens don’t want to merge their fire and police departments or their local high school with a smaller high school in a neighboring town, they have every right to that, but then again there is no reasonable expectation that property taxes will go anywhere but up. Something has got to give — and fast. Simply saying, “I’m not the problem, it’s the other guy,” isn’t going to help because that approach is a big part of what got us in this property tax mess in the first place.
Couldn’t have said it better.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 