Officials do not feel plan is in best interest of public
By: Stephanie Brown
Local mayors say forced consolidation is a bad idea.
They say legislation currently being considered that would remove local voters from the consolidation process and leave the decision up to the state will be costly and not in the best interests of their constituents.
"We would be absolutely, totally opposed to any decision in which the citizens of Monroe, and in our case, the town of Jamesburg where citizens in both towns would not be in agreement," Monroe Mayor Richard Pucci said Wednesday.
The Joint Legislative Committee on Consolidation and Shared Services reviewed several bills Wednesday including bills AJR69, sponsored by Assemblyman Kevin O’Toole, R-Bergen, Essex and Passaic, and Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck, R-Mercer and Monmouth, and SJR47 sponsored by Sens. Joseph Kyrillos Jr., R-Middlesex and Monmouth, and Stephen Sweeney, D-Salem, Cumberland and Gloucester, that would create a panel resembling the federal military base-closing commission to decide which of the state’s 566 towns should be merged. The panel’s recommendations would be sent to the Legislature and governor, who would then vote on the list. The towns would then be forced to consolidate without having an opportunity to vote on the mergers directly.
The committee was created as part of a joint legislative session that kicked off in July. Other committees are looking at state school funding, pension and benefits, the state constitution and a possible property tax convention.
The legislation on Wednesday’s agenda is designed to reduce the number of municipalities in the state. Current state law permits consolidation, but mergers rarely happen because of "the narrow parochial interests of the residents of each municipality," according to the bill introduced by Sen. Kyrillos and Sen. Sweeney. Therefore, it is up to the state to make a "serious effort" to reduce the number of municipalities and reduce property taxes, the bill says.
The bill would established the Municipal Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission, a bipartisan panel consisting of nine voting members. Four members, with no more than two being from the same political party, would be appointed by the governor; one would be appointed by the state Senate president; one by the state Senate minority leader; one by the speaker of the General Assembly; one by the Assembly minority leader; and one by the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
The Municipal Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission would have no more than two years to make a list of the municipalities that would benefit from consolidation based on a criteria set by panel and including geography (shared or contiguous boundary), economic factors (potential for tax savings) and community interests.
The list would be submitted to the Legislature, which would vote on the recommendations and send a resolution to the governor. If the resolution were to be approved by the Legislature and governor, the towns would be forced to merge and would have one year to develop a plan to do so.
Upon the approval of the consolidation plan by the governor, a decision on school consolidation would be left to the education commissioner and school officials of the affected districts.
Both Mayor Pucci and Jamesburg Mayor Anthony LaMantia agreed that before a decision could be made, the state would have to perform a comprehensive and in-depth study at no cost to the municipalities.
"Before you can even think about consolidation, a joint study would have to be done at a magnitude of which the state has never known up to this point," said Mayor Pucci.
Mayor Pucci also said the study would have to be entirely funded by the state.
"I’m not going to sit here and spend a million or $2 million on consolidation," Mayor Pucci said. "It has to all come from the state."
Mayor LaMantia said he would expect the state to consult the towns that could be considered for consolidation
"What they should do is, if they’re going to talk about consolidating certain municipalities, they should consult that municipality," said Mayor LaMantia. "They should have them present to go over it, so (the state) can understand what that municipality is already doing because they don’t know the first thing about what the municipalities are doing.
"We’re a unique municipality because we do a lot of shared services more than almost any community around here," added Mayor LaMantia.
Mayor Pucci said he is most interested in how consolidation would affect municipal services and taxes.
"What we’re saying is we are willing to be open minded to study anything, but there’s a couple of general fundamentals that are not going to happen as long as I’m here as mayor and this council is here," said Mayor Pucci. "We’re not going to ever accept any kind of consolidation where services in Monroe or taxes in Monroe are negatively impacted."
Mayor LaMantia questioned the ability of the state to make a decision that is truly in the best interest of each town.
"You know the state and their decisions, they don’t have a good record," Mayor LaMantia said.

