Hank Kalet

Here is the third ad from Blue Jersey’s Think Equal campaign. Watch it and explain why we’re creating this cumbersome and unnecessary distinction.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The judges got it right.

While there has been a movement afoot to quash the government’s ability to seize property for public use, the fact remains that it is sometimes necessary. The decision yesterday to uphold a lower court decision allowing a Mount Laurel seizure of a 16-acre parcel slated for 23 single-family houses.

The 6-1 decision allowing Mount Laurel to take over an old farm and stop a planned housing development opens a new legal avenue for preserving open space. It also expands the use of eminent domain, a hot topic across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court last year allowed towns to seize land and turn it over to private developers.

“The citizens of New Jersey have expressed a strong and sustained public interest in the acquisition and preservation of open space,” the court wrote in an unsigned four-page decision.

The court said the Burlington County township’s desire to limit development, overcrowded schools, traffic congestion and pollution was consistent with the “motive driving the public interest in open-space acquisition.”

The court decision means that open space preservation can be considered as a legitimate public use (the issue in the New Canaan case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court focused on a commercial redevelopment plan). And in New Jersey, that has to be viewed as a positive — umm — development.

Cranbury snared ($) a significant parcel in 2005, the 53-acre Fischer property on South Main Street (often called the “gateway to the southern end of town”) after threatening condemnation. And other communities have done the same.

The issue, of course, has been framed in a way to benefit the large property owners and developers — pitting a huge faceless bureaucracy against some small, powerless homeowner (i.e., Long Branch). These takings do occur, often for nefarious reasons (which is why we need tighter campaign-finance rules and pay-to-play restrictions). But we should not allow situations like the Long Branch taking to color our view of eminent domain ($).

With the proper controls ($), it can function as a way to enhance the public good.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Regional Contribution Agreements — the method that allows wealthier towns like Monroe and Cranbury to pay urban centers to take on the suburban communities’ state-mandated housing obligations — could become an endangered species.

Gov. Jon Corzine told the Anti-Poverty Network that he wants to build 10,000 new affordable housing units and that he wants to place limits on the so-called RCAs.

in addition to creating new units, Corzine said the location of them is just as important. He said that the state must promote affordable housing in areas close to viable jobs. He also endorsed limits on Regional Contribution Agreements, which allow towns to opt out of their affordable housing commitments by paying other communities to take them.

George Hawkins, executive director of New Jersey Future, a group that champions a coordinated approach to development, endorsed Corzine’s remarks, stressing that affordable housing is “very significant” for the state’s economy and for residents.

“If you don’t have any jobs near where the poor folks are, how are they going to stop being poor,” Hawkins said.

The Record offers this take, with which I wholehearatedly agree:

But it’s particularly gratifying that the governor raised the possibility of requiring more communities in the state to provide their fair share of moderately priced housing.

The New Jersey Supreme Court’s landmark Mount Laurel decisions 30 years ago aimed for all communities to provide some share of low- and moderately priced housing. But wealthier towns have taken advantage of a provision that lets them pay other communities to take on their share of affordable housing.

The communities most eager to receive money to build new housing are the poorer cities. That’s why New Jersey still has the problem of having its low-income population concentrated in urban areas, often far from their jobs.

Corzine told an anti-poverty conference he would consider setting limits on towns buying their way out of their housing obligations. He should pursue this. Increasingly, company headquarters and large retail stores are locating outside of urban areas: Jobs are moving away from affordable housing.

Cranbury is a prime example, building — or preparing to build — 18 million square feet of warehouse space, which creates lower-income jobs, but the small town has been sending its housing obligation north — to Carteret and Perth Amboy. Nothing wrong with that, technically — the rules are the rules — but it does seem to violate the spirit of the original Mount Laurel decision, which was to ensure that there was a place in every community for every income level.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Here is the full text of the press release issued by the Assembly Majority office on Joe Roberts’ Clean Elections bill. Notice how it ignores the bill’s very real flaws and limitations and paints a rosey picture.

But I’ll let the reader judge.

Here it is:

CLEAN ELECTIONS 2007 REAUTHORIZATION BILL
CLEARS COMMITTEE
Legislation Would Expand Project for 2007,
Institute Changes to Enhance Chances for Program’s Success

(TRENTON) – The Assembly State Government Committee today approved bipartisan legislation Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. sponsored to reauthorize the state’s Clean Elections program for 2007.

The campaign finance reform measure aims to enhance the ability of candidates to qualify for public campaign financing, extend the window for garnering qualifying contributions, and increase funding for voter outreach to educate the public on the program.

“This new Clean Elections approach will make New Jersey’s program more meaningful for candidates and voters alike,” said Roberts (D-Camden). “If enacted, these reforms will help prove that public financing can strengthen the democratic process by keeping special interest money out of election campaigns.”

The framework of recommendations is based on findings of a four-member bipartisan working group that the Assembly Speaker established in September and a report issued earlier this year by the New Jersey Citizens’ Clean Elections Commission. The Assembly working group members were: Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex), Assemblyman Bill Baroni (R-Mercer), and Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-Monmouth) – all of whom have signed on as sponsors of the reauthorization measure.

“Clean Elections continues to hold the greatest promise for removing the influence of special interest money in the political governmental process,” said Greenstein, a champion of the initial public financing program. “These reforms will help ensure that the public’s interest and not the special interests are kept front-and-center in legislative campaigns.”

“This legislation creates a program that hopefully will start the process of weeding big money out of the political process,” said Baroni (R-Mercer/Middlesex). “One of the best ways to chip away at the culture of corruption is to do away with campaign contributions from those who seek to peddle influence.”

The legislation proposes the following changes be made for the Clean Elections program in 2007:

· Lower the number of necessary qualifying contributions from 1,500 to 800, and set a flat $10 donation level for qualifying donations – as recommended by the New Jersey Citizens’ Clean Elections Commission;

· Allow a candidate who reaches at least 50 percent of the qualification level to be certified as a “clean candidate”;

· Provide increased funding to the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission for voter outreach, education, and communication – more than was previously recommended by the Clean Elections Commission;

· More than triple, to $10,000, the amount of seed money a candidate can collect to help finance their efforts to qualify as a “clean candidate”;

· Expand the number of districts participating in the program from two to three – including a competitive “split” legislative district; and

· Make it easier for residents to contribute to candidates seeking to qualify under the program (cash, online donations, etc.).

Under the measure, the participating legislative districts would be selected by the legislative leadership of each party. A current Democratic-controlled district would be selected jointly by the Senate President and Assembly Speaker; the Senate and Assembly minority leaders would select one Republican-controlled district. A third district with split representation would be agreed upon by all four legislative leaders.

“These changes will remove many of the stumbling blocks that hampered the ability of Clean Elections to really take hold in the last election cycle,” said Greenwald, who was one of only two candidates to qualify for public financing under the program in 2005. “While qualification standards should be challenging to attain, they must not be so stringent as to be unachievable. These revisions will enhance the ability of dedicated candidates to run under the Clean Elections banner.”

“Our task force worked hard to come up with a proposal that will improve on the clean elections pilot program from the last election,” said Handlin. “It is my hope that this program will make it easier for candidates to participate and more likely to achieve its goal of producing elections that are not dominated by the corrupting influence of large campaign donations.”

The working group examined existing Clean Elections legislative measures and the findings and recommendations of the New Jersey Citizens’ Clean Elections Commission, which issued a report and recommendations for the 2007 Fair and Clean Elections Pilot Project as the basis for formulating the legislative proposal.

New Jersey became the first state to legislatively enact a Clean Elections program in 2004.

The bill is scheduled for an Assembly floor vote on Monday, December 11.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The latest on the pooch is that she’s eating — woo hoo!!

She moped around yesterday, refusing to eat in the morning and walking around hangdog (I now can understand how the expression came into being). ButAnnie and her sister Susan got Honey to play a bit outside and the vet gave her some steroids to jumpstart the appetite and things have been looking up.

She ate some pastina and chicken broth last night and then some dog food and some biscuits. Then, when I got home at about 10 p.m., she ate a little more — including the milk from my bowl of cereal (she loves the leftover milk).

We are still not sure what it was — and may never know. The vet was perplexed and we were prepared to take her to a specialist in Tinton Falls on Friday. That’s looking unnecessary and we’re finally starting to exhale.

The picture, by the way, is from the spring when she was in good health and before we renovated our kitchen. I think it proves that she’s always been a bit neureotic.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick