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Pohatcong Mayor James Kern III with Courage to Connect NJ Exec. Dir. Gina Genovese (Center)
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It seems that not a week goes by these days without a plethora of new articles about the impending death of America's middle class. Sadly, there seems to be more confirmation than not of this trend as consumers face rising costs for basic items such as food, energy, and healthcare at rates of inflation that far exceed official government indexes. Meanwhile incomes are not keeping pace. Here in New Jersey, incomes have declined in both real and nominal terms over the last couple of years. For those who own homes, things have been especially bad lately with homes values dropping dramatically while property taxes continue to spiral upwards- despite efforts to forestall the rise by setting theoretical caps on new taxes.
Caught in this vice of declining incomes and rising taxes, taxpayers are starting to cast around for practical ways of easing the financial pressure. Municipal consolidation is once again becoming a hot topic around the state - especially since this past November election when the voters of Princeton Township and Princeton Borough voted overwhelmingly to merge their two townships. The combined town will now be known simply as Princeton and there is no doubt that this move will be closely studied by other officials and the public at large as they move forward and work out the logistics of their merger.
One of the organizations promoting municipal mergers is the independent, non-partisan organization, Courage to Connect NJ . On Nov. 2nd, at the invitation of Pohatcong Mayor James Kern III, Courage to Connect NJ, came to Pohatcong School for a presentation on this topic. For those who were able to attend, it may have been a real eye-opener since while the concept of municipal mergers is easy to grasp, the process itself can choreographed in many different and intriguing ways. To better understand some of the details, I urge a visit to their well-designed and informative website:
www.couragetoconnectnj.org
In future posts, I intend to cover some of these details and maybe some breaking developments on a topic that seemingly will continue to get wide play with the public. In the meantime, happy reading and maybe a few parting questions: Have you ever given this any thought and if so, what are your initial feelings about it?
Which towns should merge? And for fun, what would we name any of these new amalgamations?
