The elephant in the room when it comes to revitalization is schools.  Everyone knows it but most are hesitant to talk about the real underlying problem.

In the late 60s when most school systems including the ones in New Jersey were going through racial integration, New Jersey dropped the ball.  Sure enough the schools were integrated but at a city level and with predictable results.  With racist fear in their hearts parents began leaving Trenton and stepped across city lines to Ewing, Lawrence and Hamilton.  That drain of stability and capital led to a gradual decline in both school performance and the tax base necessary to fund basic services.  Like it did in many school systems across the state and nation, a vicious cycle of decline set in.

We are where we are.  Now there is no way that an inner city school system like Trenton will reach academic success levels better than the surrounding townships in our lifetime.  Anyone who says it’s possible, hasn’t been paying attention to the failed efforts over the past 30 years.

Meanwhile, in the South, schools were integrated at the county level rather than city.  This made all the difference and it wasn’t because southern governors were enlightened, instead they were forced at gunpoint by the federal government.

In cities like my hometown of Winston-Salem, kids were bussed all over the county to achieve racial balance. It was expensive, messy and uncomfortable.  However, it also helped to avoid “white flight” because there was no where to which to fly.

Today, cities like Winston-Salem and Charlotte have grown in population and have retained much of their economic vibrancy.  Neighborhoods have remained stable and over the years, as the country and the South have become more racially tolerant, neighborhoods have become integrated.

I’ve previously referenced a Harvard study on school segregation that finds the most integrated schools to be in the South.  That same study lists New Jersey as the fourth most segregated in the country.  This shouldn’t be a surprise to the calm and rational social observer.

Had New Jersey’s state leaders been more enlightened they would have followed the Southern model.

Governor Christie is proposing to cut the cord on the very cities that have felt the brunt of New Jersey’s failure as a state to practically integrate schools.  I caution our suburban neighbors not to do that as the results will create vast holes of lawlessness that will spill over at alarming rates into the adjoining suburban sprawl.  It isn’t far-fetched to remember Mario Van Peebles’ 1991 movie, New Jack City as a point of social reference.

There are options for turning the tide in Trenton but none of them involve a dramatic reduction in funding.  Rather the goal should be a gradual reduction in state aid over the next 20 years.

One of the options on the table should be State tax credit investment in urban market rate development.  The current investment climate is a non-starter for private urban development.  The market has simply been made too risky by a combination of city and state policy.  Large, market shaping investment on the order of $100s of millions of dollars is necessary to stimulate any kind of meaningful increase in Trenton’s ratables at this point.

However there are two other less expensive and potentially more socially beneficial options that the Governor and legislature have so far ignored.

1. Consolidate our schools into 21 county-wide school systems
2. Offer vouchers in urban districts

Either option fundamentally changes the picture in urban centers like Trenton.

County-wide consolidation is the most straight-forward approach and has the advantage of 40 years of experience.  With a stroke of a pen and a modest investment in transportation, Governor Christie could simultaneously reduce overall school costs in the state through shared service, eliminate the #1 reason for disinvestment in urban centers and improve race relations.

Whenever this topic is mentioned, well meaning people say our suburban neighbors will never go for it and home rule prevents it.  I’ll remind the naysayers that the South didn’t exactly go quietly.  Southern leaders didn’t go for it at all and their main argument (i.e. excuse) was “state’s rights”.  History has proven them wrong.  New Jersey is wrong as a state to simultaneously create dangerous hotbeds of social unrest and spend excessively in the process.

Integration will cause students with non-education focused backgrounds to mix with students who have education as a family priority.  The blending will be uncomfortable for both but students who have the ability to succeed in a positive environment will for the first time have one.  Students who are bused out of their suburbs into the city will find a new appreciation for diversity that will help them live a more meaningful life (the writer speaks from experience).

The transportation necessary for this transition won’t be cheap but will pail in comparison to the cost of the social unrest the Governors current plan will unleash.  And we’ll be a better State for it.

The second option is vouchers. Offering vouchers to families in urban cities will not likely improve overall achievement, rather it will create a stimulus for families to move into the city.  The beauty of an urban voucher program is that a $5000 / child voucher would reduce overall spending on public schools.  Spending $5000 per child and having the parent pay the balance of a private school education is a bargain compared to a $16,000 public education.

Overall spending on education doesn’t go down and neither does the demand for teachers, rather the spending is shifted to parents who are seeking to find more affordable housing options in cities like Trenton and will gladly make up the difference in school tuition over and above a voucher amount.

The exact amount of the voucher is important but whether its $5000, $10,000 or even $15,000 the effect is the same.  We would reduce overall spending per pupil and stimulate new investment in the urban centers where the program is offered.  It’s a nifty, no cost way of revitalizing cities like Trenton.

Of course the education unions have spent decades opposing any new thinking in educational funding.  As a society we can no longer stand for that attitude.  Trenton’s schools are not what we want and its time for the unions to get out of the way.

“Reinvent Trenton” takes and economic view towards revitalization and sometimes that means taking aim at the elephant in the room.  Perhaps this is right time and right Governor to make the most important change in the way our state operates.

I should point out the central fact that is in dispute in the Mayor’s speech on March 30th.

Mayor Palmer claims that the State should be paying us $155M if they were taxed at our rate (~let’s say 3% effective). That would equate to a valuation of state property of roughly $4.5B.

However, DCA estimates the value of all public property in Trenton which includes State, City and Federal buildings (but doesn’t include schools and the arenas) at $1.4B. Based on this number and some analysis by TDA and my guestimate, I’d say the State valuation is more like $1.2B. With that valuation in mind, the State would owe more like $36M/year in PILOT.

Trenton’s actual ratable value is $2.1B (the number our property taxes are based on).

A disagreement about this basic fact would lead to two radically different positions. If the Mayor is right, then the State is a deadbeat like he said. If my calculations are right, then we’ve been receiving aid for a long time because the State currently funds us to the tune of $340M ($250M for schools and $90 for municipal).

Where we agree is that a sudden $42M decrease in aid (or whatever you call it) would be disastrous, just as the Mayor said. The big difference is the negotiating position we go in with.

I’ll stress that the above are my numbers (so far). The Committee to Fix Trenton’s Budget is working to get to the bottom of this and develop a group position and then an approach.

In light of this evening’s speech, I thought it useful for my neighbors to have this perspective. Look for a more for the FixTrentonsBudget.org group.

One member owns a new restaurant downtown.  Another develops real estate, converting old buildings to new residences.  A third works on Wall Street.  Other members by profession include a college professor, a retired state worker, and the director of a non-profit arts organization.

All are among the eleven Trenton residents that have joined “The Committee to Fix Trenton’s Budget”, a new civic organization led by Dan Dodson, who is a management consultant.

“The state and the city are both in a budget crisis, at a time when the existing political leadership in the City is going to completely turn over for the first time in 20 years,” says Dodson, “The new City administration is being ‘thrown to the lions’ so to speak, and no matter who sits in the Mayor’s office and City Council next June, they’re going to need help from the citizens of Trenton.”

The current committee plans to reach out to neighborhood associations and other grass-roots citizens groups to increase membership.   The committee has established 3 key goals:

1. To define an open budget process for the City’s government.
2. To establish a rational set of policies to govern the relationship between the City and State government, that will enable the city to develop economically and ultimately reduce its dependence on State funding.
3. To educate Trenton citizens and politicians about the City’s budget, and to encourage the adoption of budget and taxation policies that will help the City move forward.

The current core-group brings considerable expertise to the task.   “Last week,” says Dodson, “after several weeks of concerted information gathering we were trying to figure out the state’s contribution to the city’s budget.  We realized we still couldn’t figure it out!  If our group with two Harvard MBAs, a private banker and a former investment banker are confused, what chance do our fellow residents have?”  He added, “We’re determined to get to the bottom of this: to extract the information necessary to understand the current crisis, to inform our fellow residents, and to formulate rational policies that will help the City move forward.”

Patricia Stewart, long time Trenton activist, feels that everyone on the committee is working hard to overcome former differences.  “I’m sure a lot of folks on the Committee don’t agree with each other on specific issues.  But it doesn’t seem to matter.  We all believe in Trenton, and we’re all willing to work together, and to share our different skills and experience, to find a common way forward. “

The committee is comprised of renters and owners in the City.  In addition, “We are comprised of Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.  We’re black and white, male and female, straight and gay” says Dodson, “The diversity of this group is one of its strengths:  if we can reach a consensus on policies and direction, it should be easier for the new administration and Council to adopt them as well.”

The Committee has a website:  http://www.FixTrentonsBudget.com .  Dodson and the Committee can be reached at: TheCommittee@FixTrentonsBudget.com

The Committee to Fix Trenton’s Budget:

Dan Dodson, Chair

Christopher Brashier

Ayesha De Mond

Stephen Doyle

Greg Forester

Michael Goldstein

Barbara Horne

Dennis Kim-Prieto

Pat Stewart

Mark Stradling

Cynthia Vandenberg

We’ve come a long way since 2006 when very few of our candidates had web sites.  In this election cycle most of the 42 candidates for Mayor and City Council have web sites, email addresses and even FaceBook pages.  However there are some stragglers.

Here’s the candidate info we have so far

The below represents information that neither the Beautiful Trenton committee or the OMHS candidate forum (which I’m on) could NOT find.  Between us, we’re still keeping a running list so you have leads on these candidates please send to me on FaceBook, dan@livingonthenet.com or post it on this web site.

x = missing information	Position	Email	Website	Postal
Thomas Brown	At Large	x	x
Carmen Natal-Melendez	East	x	x
Errick Wiggins	East		x
Darren Green	At Large	x	x
Zane Dion Clark	East	x	x
Kesner Dufresne	East	x
Joseph Harrison	East	x	x
Crystal A. Smith	South	x	x
Joyce Kersey	West	x	x
Darryl Brooks	At Large		x
Juan Martinez	At Large		x

Our neighbors in NJ have had it with feeding our addiction for state aid so they’re proposing to cut us off cold turkey.  Like any addict, going cold turkey is the painful way to get clean.  Whether or not all aid is cut is a debate, but it seems sure that a painful amount is in jeopardy.

To avoid this we as Trentonians (and forget the current administration for a minute) need to recommend a treatment plan that the state can live with.   Citizens can form this plan and with the backing of enough of the serious candidates for Mayor and Council, Gov. Christie will take our commitment to “budget recovery” seriously.  But first the patient has to want to be healed. Read the rest of this entry »

As the new Citizen’s Budget Committee prepares to form its recommendations to the public and our elected officials, I pondered aloud to my committee, “what limits our pace of revitalization?”

I’ll get to the answer but first I’ll recap the problem and the solution.

Our economic problems are dangerous

Read the rest of this entry »

The theme for last night’s City Council Special Session on the budget was, “The mess we’re in isn’t my fault”.

The administration officially proposed a budget that raises property taxes by almost 20% which would make Trenton’s rate by far the highest in NJ.

The Mayor spoke first.  Let me summarize. Read the rest of this entry »

It sounds official; Trenton is going to have to dramatically raise its property taxes by as much as $.80 per $100 to cover a giant $13,000,000 shortfall.

How did we accumulate such a big shortfall? This is a subject that doesn’t get enough attention.

The reality is that Trenton has been focusing on the wrong priorities for quite some time.
• We’ve given lip service to attracting high income and middle class residents.
• We’ve scared away business development by threatening to force investors to hire Trenton workers.
• And, we’ve embraced every program for the poor there is, thereby increasing our overall cost to serve.

We thought we could get away with all of this because we were pretty successful at begging the State for charity (Trenton pays only 12% of its municipal and school budget).

So now we have a $13M shortfall because the economy turned south and the State’s budget is taking its own hit. As Reinvent Trenton predicted almost two years ago, when the State coughs, Trenton will get pneumonia. See, Trenton’s budget is in worse shape than you think.

The Mayor wanted to put a band-aid on the problem by selling off an asset, The Water Works. But a group of citizens decided to challenge the tactic for a variety of reasons, some more sound than others. The net result is that the petitioners in their effort to block the sale are rubbing the Mayor’s nose in his budget failure. The Mayor can’t argue that it’s the petitioner’s fault. An ongoing concern should never have to sell off assets in order to balance an operational budget.

In a way, the petitioners are rubbing all of our noses in our failure to elect mayors and council members that understood how a city works well enough to avoid this budget disaster. If you look at it that way then they’re probably doing us a favor. We failed in our role as voters. We need to correct our error at the polls this May.

However, the petitioners are wrong in two major areas:
1) The Water Works outside of Trenton is NOT strategic to our city and therefore SHOULD be sold. If not now, then it should be sold sometime in the future.
2) The dramatic increase in taxes will accelerate Trenton’s demise by scaring away investment.

Cooler heads could have prevailed to work out a deal to force a constructive compromise. However, both sides were too stubborn to do what was best for Trenton. The administration could have agreed to aggressive tactics and citizen oversight to fix Trenton’s management issues. The petitioners could have realized that the sale was non-strategic and in the best interest of the city. They didn’t and now both the Mayor and the petitioners are likely to take the ship down with them.

We, the voters will get what we deserve.

Trenton is a boosterish town.  It’s the kind of place where if a visitor said, “My, those buildings look grungy”, his host would say, “Oh no, that’s its patina”.

Ask any Trenton native and they’ll tell you how proud they are of the city, “I’m Trenton Proud”.

What?

We’ve done such a great job running the place that our industry has left town, our education level is among the lowest in the state and we’re on the verge of bankruptcy.  Yea for us! Read the rest of this entry »

Economics is all about the choices humans make and in the aggregate human societies (micro economics and macro economics).  Negotiating can be thought of as a specific case of micro economics closely linked to the core concepts of marginal utility and marginal value.  Therefore, Reinvent Trenton is taking this opportunity to explain basic concepts in negotiation and the role of eminent domain in them. Read the rest of this entry »