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Municipal consolidation: Will it mean mergers or collisions?

shotgun wedding

 

Updated on September 3, 2017 at 8:02 AM Posted on September 3, 2017 at 6:30 AM

With an election coming up, we’re hearing a lot about consolidating towns and school districts as a means of solving our property-tax problem.

Before this goes any further, let me warn all involved about the nature of such transactions.

Consolidations are like weddings. There are two types: weddings of attraction, into which both partners enter willingly; and shotgun weddings, in which one party takes part only because of compulsion.

The latter describes one Monmouth County town that I covered in the waning days of the Corzine administration, Loch Arbour.

The elected officials of this charming little town by the sea entered into a mutually beneficial pact with nearby Ocean Township when they set up a shared-services agreement. They would send their kids to Ocean schools in return for a per-pupil payment of about $15,000 per year.

https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/09/municipal_consolidation_will_it_mean_mergers_or_co.html#incart_river_home

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Reader says Municipal Consolidation Will Never Happen

Bomb Threat Closes Bergen Community College

file photo by Boyd Loving

Good luck – this hurts union jobs and so those thugs and their toadies in Trenton will say anything and everything to oppose municipal consolidation. Home rule allows for about 70% more police than we actually need, etc. But the unions lackeys will lie till their Pinocchio noses reach Pennsylvania telling us all how our safety is at risk without home rule. Look at Waldwick, Ho-Ho-Kus, Ridgewood, Glen rock and Midland Park: one police dept with one chief would suffice, but instead we have five chiefs and top heavy brass. Great for the unions, outright theft of taxpayers. It’s blue collar crime.