By vincent todaro
Staff Writer
EAST BRUNSWICK — Since residents in nearby Helmetta will see a ballot question asking if they support a statewide constitutional convention, a challenger for the Township Council told the governing body he is dismayed East Brunswick voters can’t also vote on the issue.
Anthony Riccobono, a former councilman who is running on the Republican ticket, discussed the issue at an Oct. 7 council meeting. He first raised the issue several weeks earlier, saying the council should put a question on the general election ballot asking voters whether they support the convention for the discussion of school tax reform.
The council responded that the legal deadline for such a move had expired, and also questioned the need for such a vote.
At last week’s meeting, Riccobono made mention of Helmetta’s ballot, which asks if the Borough Council should petition the state Assembly and Senate to pass legislation allowing for a public vote on whether to have a constitutional convention.
"Here’s something that we could be doing that we haven’t done," he said, pledging that, if elected, he will support having the question on next year’s ballot.
Riccobono has previously argued that the convention is needed to help reduce property taxes.
Council Vice President Saul Fink, who is running for re-election on the Democratic ticket, said that Riccobono was wrong in his assertion that the council has not done enough to keep property taxes stable.
Though the council is directly in charge of only the municipal portion of the tax bill, he said it has limited development in the township and thus kept the number of students going to East Brunswick schools from increasing.
Fink said the Democrat-controlled council has purchased about 150 acres of open space in order to keep more homes from being built. It also enacted a 6-acre zoning law that greatly limits the amount of residential development in the rural preservation zone.
"We’ve done very good things to impact the future of your tax rate to keep it stable," he said.
Speaking after the meeting, Mayor William Neary, a Democrat, asked when Riccobono and his Republican running mates, Christi Calvano and Robert Tagliente, will express a direct idea for reducing taxes in East Brunswick. He said they have not mentioned one thing they will do for the township if they get elected.
Riccobono also said later that he believes a township with as many people as East Brunswick can have an effect on what state legislators do.
"We have a town with about 48,000 people," he said. "If a good deal of those people came out and voted for this, they’d (the legislators) take notice. They’d damn well better take notice."
He said state leaders need to look into the idea of having a convention, but also examine distinct ways to pay for education other than through property taxes. While property taxes can still be used for a portion of the cost, there are numerous other funding avenues the state should look at.
"They won’t have much to worry about if they let people make the bottom line decision," he said in reference to legislators who may be skittish about losing votes by making changes.
He mentioned a tax on cigarettes as one possible revenue source. Other ideas include using lottery funds or raising income taxes on businesses and corporations.
The ultimate goal should be to allow those who cannot afford high property taxes, such as senior citizens, poor families and people on fixed incomes, to pay less for schools, while increasing the burden on the wealthy, he said.
Fink told the Sentinel that Oregon was one state that tried to put school funding "on the backs of business," and the result was that businesses started to leave the state. That could pose a financial problem because of the loss of tax revenue from businesses.
He said a sales tax would be collected by that state — instead of individual municipalities — and the state may not grant aid to school districts on an equal basis.
A convention, he said, is just "a tool" for change, whereas a real solution has not even been established.

