Eric Jackson, Frank Weeden, John Harmon, Keith Hamilton and Annette Lartigue are left on the Island along with me.

Don’t even consider voting for any of the others. They have policies and / or personalities that are dangerous to Trenton’s future.

So where are we with these five? I’ll use the Trenton Times, Fix Trenton’s budget survey and Mill Hill forum responses to compare and contrast.

Jackson and Lartique are the most Developer friendly
Hamilton, Harmon and Weeden seem to think forcing developers to hire Trenton workers is the way to encourage development. Jackson and Lartique are less clear about this. Furthermore Hamilton is the only candidate who favors forcing developers to pay prevailing wages. Increasing ratables is our #1 priority and to make life complicated for the developers that might make that happen is the ultimate in counter-productivity. It also demonstrates an attitude that government can and should control the economy. This is currently the Palmer Admin policy and look where its gotten us. People wonder why I’m running and this is it. We can’t afford to have four more years of anti-business policy in city hall.

Lartique is the most aggressive on the budget
Weeden says he will cut budget and hopes unions and Governor will cooperate. He opposed the reassessments necessary to correct our tax policy at the Mill Hill Forum.

Lartique is probably the most open and aggressive in her stance on re-working the budget, creating a strategic plan and doing reassessments. She’s not quite 100% correct on her explanation of zero based budgeting but she’s trying and I’d be glad to help her.

Jackson is the second most aggressive in his stance. He’s a bit more vague in his approach and doesn’t support zero-based budgeting. But he’d at least try. He told Mill Hill he opposing reassessments but changed his mind on the Fix Trenton’s Budget survey.

Harmon keeps saying he can’t explain his policy to reduce costs in limited space. What he doesn’t realize is that by not being able to simply express his approach he’s fairly much saying he doesn’t have one. He opposed reassessments at the Mill Hill forum and was tentative about it in the survey.

Hamilton says he’ll be able to find a $40M surplus. That kind of crazy talk gets people voted off the Island. His answers on reassessment show that he hasn’t thought about it.

Finally I’d have to say Jackson has the best temperament to be Mayor, in 2014
Jackson appears to be as serious and earnest as he comes across. Harmon, wants to be everbody’s friend and keeps talking about resources he’d bring to Trenton. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean or why he hasn’t brought those resources before. Lartigue has had some troubling and well documented anger management issues. Weeden is a “lone wolf” and hasn’t solidified support among the very people he thinks should support him, including me. Hamilton doesn’t seem to have serious notions about running a city and his policies don’t seem to be based on a philosophy.

As for me.You can be sure that developer hiring practices would be left to developers. Our city budget would undergo zero-based budgeting which means each department STARTS with no budget and has to prove why they need one given goals agreed by the Mayor and Council. And while I’m sure my temperament isn’t perfect for Mayor it is pretty good for making “by the numbers” business decisions. I won’t care about my political future, just about turning around the city.

For At Large
Jim Carlucci for his knowledge. Al Ward for his smarts. Christine Donahue for her process based business background.

For West Ward
Moriarity for his tenacious exploration of our financial issues and for exposing LA Parker and WIMG.

For North Ward
Roland Laird for making reassessment central to his campaign

For East Ward
Kesner Dufresne for talking about the wage tax and about being pro-business

For South Ward
Carlos Avilla for doing well on the budget survey even though he complained

However, I live in Trenton and own enough property so that high taxes and declining value could be a substantial economic blow.  I am not alone in this precarious situation.  Every home and building owner in Trenton is at risk as our city’s budget comes closer to falling into the financial abyss.

I’ve listened to the candidates and just don’t hear a serious “by the numbers” explanation of how they think we can rescue ourselves.  Instead, I hear a lot of blame being laid on the State.

I also know that many of our candidates have been in public life for many years but have never jumped up and down screaming about the fact that we were so dependent on the State.  Even now, several of the candidates are asking for votes so they can do more for the poor citizens of Trenton.  We’re sinking, as a city, and yet there are candidates talking about new social programs.

There are candidates who either believe or know that citizens want to hear, “that fixing the schools will revitalize Trenton”.  That notion is absurd and tells me that I’m listening to a “Know Nothing”  politician.  In order to magically fix the schools, we’d have to start with the young kids and put them into some magical environment that hasn’t even been invented, wait 12 years, and then perhaps we’d have a graduation rate worth bragging about.  It could be decades before Trenton’s schools are better than surrounding suburbs.  Nobody moves to a city for the schools that are “almost as good”.  Trenton schools need to be “as good, or better”, but we can’t make that happen in time to save our city.

We need a no-nonsense, and dare I say pragmatic (another word for Republican) approach to our problem.  We need a “Bull in the China shop” much like Chris Christie has become for NJ.  We need to do the opposite of what we’ve been doing in Trenton for the past 20 years.

We don’t need balance, we need imbalance.  Trenton has gone out of its way to be attractive to the poor for quite some time and has done little to attract middle class and high income residents.  We’re going to have to change that balance.  We’re actually going to have to find a way to appeal to people with disposable income and lots of them.

As I look at the candidates and at myself,  I’ve come to the conclusion that I have something to offer Trenton.  As a Management Consultant, my job is often to help organizations improve and to do the best things first.  We help our clients manage by the numbers.  As a volunteer in Trenton, I find myself drawn towards the challenging problem of urban revitalization.  It’s one of the great challenges of our time and I want to be a part of meeting that challenge.  ReinventTrenton.com is all about that as is TrentonLofts.com and FixTrentonsBudget.com.

Running for mayor is a thankless job and being mayor would involve some personal and financial pain for me and Michelle (Michelle doesn’t like the idea).  However, if voters look around and decide they just can’t tie their futures to any of the existing candidates and would prefer to take the opposite approach, I will serve.  Probably only for one term, but I’d serve long enough to give the opposite approach a chance to take shape.

I understand that many Trentonians have been fed a diet of rhetoric on revitalization over the years and I’ve written quite a bit to debunk much of it. But, just so there aren’t any surprises, a few of the ingredients a Dodson administration include are listed below.  If you can’t depart with the notion that these sacred cows need to be cast out, then don’t vote for me:

• Create and institutionalize a meaningful budget process
• Reassess on a 5 year cycle and adjust our tax rate accordingly
• Lift the residency requirement for all city workers (we need the best minds possible on the case)
• Call in outside law enforcement support to augment our police
• Reinvent our city processes to enable our staff to have a bigger impact for less
• Make every aspect of Trenton the MOST business and development friendly in the US
• No support at all for subsidized, deed restricted, housing
• Negotiate a fair deal with the State, to gradually get us off of state aid
• Lobby, maybe through the US Justice Dept., for integration of schools in Mercer County and NJ (that equates to busing)

For those that have read my blog over the years, none of this is new.  I just want to make it clear that my firm belief is that protecting the above “sacred cows” is in the way of Trenton’s progress.  Adopting the above is the “opposite” of what we’ve been doing and the “opposite” of the positions for many of the current candidates.

In the end, it’s the voters choice. If called I’d serve and would love the challenge.

In this cycle the situation has improved dramatically.

All eight of the mayoral candidates have web sites and 16 of the 27 city council candidates have sites.  Most of the candidates appear to also have a Facebook presence and I’m Facebook friends with many of them or have “Liked” their campaign pages.

In addition several of them are showing up on blogs in town (Keith Hamilton has a recent comment on Reinvent Trenton).

I’d like to think my chastising the group has had something to do with it but I suspect that’s not it.  Rather, the politicians are following the voters onto the web, have availed themselves of relatively inexpensive web solutions (Kevin Moriarity’s blog is an effective mechanism for communicating his views on campaign issues) and are following their Barrack Obama’s example of effective grassroots use of the Internet.

This is a good thing.

It’s inexpensive for the candidates and that’s good for them and for us as voters as they are less beholden to non-citizen funding interests.  It’s good for voters because we get to quickly read more about a candidate’s position than they’ll ever be able to communicate verbally or with their printed material.  Furthermore, many of the websites enable online donations.  I appreciate all of this.

Candidate Websites

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!

And now here come the candidates.

You’d think running on Trenton’s record of achievement and their role in it would be a dubious strategy.  But you’d be wrong.

The very first words on candidate Eric Jackson’s web site are, “Born and raised in Trenton ….”.  He’s as much as saying yep I’ve been part of this mess all along.

Keith Hamilton takes a curious nostalgic view.  The first words on his site are, “Keith grew up in Trenton, making him a part of its past.”  Candidate Hamilton is directly linking himself to our past failures.

Alex Brown holds out to the end of his Mayoral pitch to provide his Trenton bonafides, “As a life long resident of Trenton and a graduate of Trenton Central High School”.  Of course Brown may have bigger issues if he’s running on his record as a school board member of the under-performing Trenton School System.

In a refreshing respite from the Trentonitis that infects our municipal elections, candidates Pintella, Lartigue and Mack have chosen to refrain from playing the “born and bred” card.  Instead their web sites deal mostly with their positions on issues.  Whether or not you agree with them you’ve got to respect a candidate who doesn’t resort to nativism in a potentially divisive campaign season.

Candidates Segura (not born and bred), Weeden (also not born and bred), Watson (not born and bred), Harmon (born and bred) and Fuller (nobody is certain of his origin) unfortunately don’t have web sites preferring to remain mysterious.

So what’s really wrong with “born and bred” as a campaign platform?  What harm can there be in making this accident of biology and geography central parts of the stump speech?

In a campaign, candidate’s messages have meaning.

• When they make a virtue out of one thing, they imply its opposite is a vice.
• When they brag about a quality they possess, they are saying those without said quality are lesser in stature.

It came up in the 2006 election cycle when Councilman Coston was attacked for his relatively short eight years of Trenton residency.

It’s as if the candidate is saying, “The other guy is no good because he wasn’t born here”.  By extension, they’re also saying that every newcomer to Trenton is inferior due to the unfortunate circumstances of his/her birth city.

As one young native Trentonian pointed out on a recent FB discussion on the subject:

“Hell, we have had homegrown folks (the Mayor and most of City Council were born and raised in Trenton) running this city into the ground for the last 20 years and look where it has gotten us”

It seems a bit counter-intuitive to run on “Born & Bred” as a strength unless you had another message in mind.

“Born and bred” divides Trentonians into us and them.  It’s code to other Trenton natives that newcomers can’t be trusted.  “All those sneaky “carpetbaggers”, they’ve moved here to take advantage of you.  Stick with me and we’ll show them”

So who is the code language aimed at?  Me, for one.  I’ve been here only nine years.  Similarly it refers to all of the other new Trentonians that have invested in neighborhoods like Mill Hill, Hiltonia, Glen Afton, Cadwalader Heights and Trenton Ferry.  Trenton’s new middle class are easy targets.

But who else?  Well, a big majority of Trenton’s various Hispanic communities weren’t born here.  They’re foreigners for gosh sake!  Just like in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York”, nativist candidates are creating a sense of us versus them. It’s an ugly political tactic we see playing out in national politics as well.

Most importantly the “born and bred” crowd is suggesting that non-native candidates like Segura and Weeden are simply unqualified because they didn’t spend their formative years watching Trenton decline.

Some might think this doesn’t matter much.  After all don’t we have bigger issues?  We do, but let’s not continue to brand newcomers as outsiders.  It’s important to Trenton’s revitalization that it be perceived as a place where you can quickly put down roots and be part of the community.  Creating an extra qualification for inclusion in the inner circle of city life is counter to the objective of growing the city.

I’m sure the apologists and campaign workers for the candidates will say, “they’re just being proud of their heritage”.  I say, words have meaning.

Show your pride with campaign platforms that will make a difference.  Don’t beat us poor unfortunate non-native voters over the head with the superiority of your birth pedigree.

Last Christmas, I wrote an article about how community spirit is a necessary and present ingredient for Trenton’s revitalization.

“Community spirit as an economic engine”

Beautiful Trenton is the best example of that spirit to date but there are problems.

A small group of citizens have taken it upon themselves to assemble a larger group of Trentonians (around 150) to discuss Trenton. All of the organizers and most of the 150 are people who’ve been civically engaged before but many were new. I always wonder what the other 82,850 residents are doing.

The Beautiful Trenton meeting was interesting not so much for the content but in the assemblage of both veterans of Trenton’s civic life and newcomers. I hope the newcomers stick with it. I really hope those newcomers find their way to reinventtrenton.com.

However, as wonderful as it was to meet new people, the Beautiful Trenton movement is fatally flawed and I sincerely hope the organizers will address the issues.

The current process includes:

1. Inaugural Community Café to identify and examine emerging themes and questions for a vision of the future of Trenton

2. Written Responses from invited participants exploring the questions and ideas generated from the Café.

3. A day of reflection, using a model of reflective discourse, in which invited participants will move beyond their authored pieces and engage each other in conversation.

4. A Culminating Community Café, held after the day of reflection, in which both the general public and invited participants will seek to identify actions Trenton residents can take to guarantee effective and responsive leadership in Trenton.

5. The results of the culminating Community Café will be used to produce a Candidate Questionnaire for all mayoral and city council candidates.

If it sounds “New Age”, that’s because it is.

As I see it, there are several important problems with this process.

The expected output is unsatisfying.

• The output is a questionnaire, not too different from the countless questionnaires produced by various groups every election cycle
• There’s a lot of time and effort being spent to produce an output short on the depth necessary to show the way forward and teeth sharp enough to make insure plan is followed.
• There is no plan for building a lasting political force in Trenton
• We don’t need talk, we need rocket scientist level thinking and in your face political force to change Trenton

Beautiful Trenton is undemocratic

• Beautiful Trenton seeks to be part of the democratic process, however the group’s outputs will be interpreted at the whim of the organizers
• The organizers will then be free to represent their interpretation as the will of the participants. Notice that the written pieces are written by “invited” / hand selected people
• There is no democratic check and balance over the interpretation (i.e. no vote)
• There’s nothing stopping the organizers from using this exercise as a power building platform
• By the end of the process not a single vote will have been cast and no membership role will have been created

All is not lost however, the organizers just need to make some modifications to their process.

I suggest Beautiful Trenton become a “new” political party

• A new political party could build its platform using a process similar to Beautiful Trenton’s current plan
• Citizens would explicit identify themselves as members of the group
• Meetings would be held with citizen volunteers to develop different aspects of the platform

• Debates on platform planks would be held
• Beautiful Trenton Members would vote on the resulting platform
• They would also vote on the leadership of the group
• Members would vote to support candidates who adopted the platform
• The party would take an oversight role going forward (for instance budget and policy reviews)
• The group doesn’t ever have to run a candidate just organize people to keep the ones we have in line
  

Community spirit is only useful when it turns into tangible results rather than meaningless talk. Voting is the difference between serious political action and a mob rally.

Let’s review the situation. It is true that on average New Jerseyans pay some of the highest taxes in general and property taxes, in particular, in the nation. However, let’s remember that our taxes fall in to two big buckets (for the most part). First, the state taxes us to pay for road construction, social programs, parks, enforcement of laws and also a large portion of our local school cost. Second, municipalities tax us for city services like police and fire, the balance of school costs and their portion of county administration costs.

Each level of government sets its own budget and its own tax rate. At the municipal and county level, the preponderance of tax revenues is collected in the form of property tax. The State collects income and sales tax.

In theory, local governments either manage their affairs poorly or perhaps decide to offer up gold plated services that will have large budgets and therefore high taxes. However, there are many forms of poor management. Some wealthy towns have big budgets but relatively low tax rates. This is because they’ve managed to attract high value property to their town. I’ll use Princeton as the classic example: They have a gorgeous municipal library and great schools yet their tax rate is just over 2%. Trenton is the opposite example. It has attracted very little high value property and therefore has a very high tax rate (just under 5% and climbing) and failing libraries and schools.

Another form of poor management happens when towns and schools refuse to share services. We’ve all heard that New Jersey has more school systems than Texas so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Texas and New Jersey are on opposite ends of the tax burden spectrum.

Voters in Trenton and other high tax rate cities should be angry. They should be angry enough to seek out candidates who will turn around their cities and eventually lower taxes. They should be reminded about their tax problem, which is of their own making, and have their noses rubbed in it every time they pay their tax bill.

Enter the property tax rebate. The State is promising to help get local politicians off the hook by subsidizing their mismanagement.

But where does this tax rebate money come from? Why the same tax payers, of course. This is a shell game that shifts responsibility for bad municipal management from local politicians, where it belongs, to state politicians who are unaccountable.

Voters in healthy towns should be outraged at the notion of paying for the mistakes of voters in unhealthy ones.

There’s nothing wrong with the state giving taxpayers rebates. However, the state should be rebating your income tax not your property tax. Let’s please demand that we keep responsibilities for spending and raising money aligned. When they’re not aligned you get … well, you get New Jersey.

The Hispanic vote, if there is such a block, could be split three ways. Carlos Avilla is likely the front runner in this group having received Coston’s endorsement and picking up some organization support. Carlos is a nice guy but seems to want to please everybody and will therefore please nobody at all.

In the Jersey St. debate he quoted President Kennedy’s speech about not asking what your country can do for you, and thirty minutes later proceeded to pander to a single mother by telling her what he and the city could do for her. Which is it Carlos?

His economic policy is no different than Trenton’s failed approach for the last 20 years. He has shown bad economic judgment in several choices of videos to feature on his web site. None of his guest speakers have prescribed sensible approaches to urban revitalization. My fear about Carlos is that while he says he’ll seek out good ideas, he won’t recognize them when they’re right in front of him.

Evelyn Deleon, as I’ve written before, seems a nice and earnest person but simply has a difficult time expressing herself and staying on point. This was evident both in the first candidate debate on Jersey St., then on LA Parker’s radio debate and in her posting on reinventtrenton.com. Deliberations in City Council must be held with both clear thinking and clear speech. Evelyn doesn’t meet this qualification.

Juan Martinez was on the wrong side of the failed Leewood Development project that would have destroyed the character of South Trenton long after the incumbent politicians withdrew their support. Juan’s ideas about economic development are rooted in the 70s making him the dangerous choice for the South Ward.

George Muschal just doesn’t seem to have his head in the game. He doesn’t come across as the kind of innovative thinker we need on Council. His low point was when he expressed his displeasure over my questioning him about the city budget. He didn’t appear to have any awareness about the budget and questioned the veracity of my assertions about it. I can’t abide this kind of ignorance about the most important issue in our city.

Now for the tough part.

Pat Stewart is well known to me and is a person whom I respect. I’ve discussed the city and its revitalization many times with Pat and find that her views are basically sound. Pat would be a safe choice for the South Ward Council seat. She understands the workings of city government and would be a vote of reason.

However Stewart has failed to do two things critical for a councilperson in 2010. She has not posted a web site. A simple web presence is an important way to communicate a candidate’s views and to maintain transparency. Furthermore she’s failed to communicate a vibrant vision for Trenton.  We need vision from the South Ward as it’s quite possible we won’t get it from the other wards or city hall. I won’t be disappointed with having Pat on Council but I can’t endorse her.

This brings me to my endorsement of Paul Harris. I know more people who’ve been rubbed the wrong way by Paul than support him so I definitely feel like I’m out on a limb with my support. However, I have talked with Paul about his views and have come to believe that we share a basic philosophy.

• Trentonians are responsible for fixing their own fiscal mess.
• We can be a great city and can be Mercer County’s downtown.
• Residential development is the path to revitalization and the city has no business holding on to vacant property.
• Crime fighting should be part of a broader economic development strategy.

Paul is bright, earnest and energetic. He’s ambitious and quite frankly I think that’s what bothers folks. Paul will need to temper this but I am sure the ambition to make Trenton great again is what’s needed in government. His vision is for us to be a “shining city on the hill” not a last resort for the people with no choices. He will welcome new residents with disposable income rather than reject them out of jealousy.

The politicians who ramble on about how much they will do for you aren’t the kind of councilpersons we need now. We need someone who understands Council, the budget and the big picture on revitalization. We don’t need another social worker on Council rather we need to understand that Trenton must compete in a competitive world. We need thoughtful people who can think for themselves. We need a person who is using the web effectively to communicate with his constituents. We need energy directed at the right things, not candidates that are wedded to the social programs that have dominated urban politics throughout Trenton’s decline.

Paul Harris has the endorsement and support of ReinventTrenton.com.

]]> http://livingonthenet.com/wordpress/the-south-ward-council-election-is-no-time-for-politics-of-the-past/feed 7 http://livingonthenet.com/wordpress/the-%e2%80%9creinvent-trenton%e2%80%9d-guide-to-fixing-the-budget http://livingonthenet.com/wordpress/the-%e2%80%9creinvent-trenton%e2%80%9d-guide-to-fixing-the-budget#comments Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:42:39 +0000 admin http://livingonthenet.com/wordpress/?p=47 Trenton’s numbers don’t tell a pretty story.  By anyone’s measure it’s currently an unsuccessful city.

• Trenton has 17.5% unemployment,
• We have a $20M budget shortfall,
• We will be bankrupt in 2012
• We have the highest taxes in NJ
• We have the 2nd highest crime rate in NJ
• And, we’re losing population

This is not a good situation.

We’ve been doing the wrong things

In my eight years of observing Trenton, its clear that while there has been a good deal of effort expended towards “revitalization”, the effort has not been well directed and has had little effect.

Our numbers show that we’ve been moving backwards

• Trenton has lost ground in per capita income growth compared to the rest of the state.
• We’ve lost population and
• Our budget situation has gone from weak to dangerous.

There’s no formula for turning around a city like Trenton

• The administration, state and city council have largely been operating from a conventional wisdom shared amongst other US cities in similar situations.
• Our general plan of attack has been to raise taxes, ask the state for more money, build affordable housing, get tough on developers and do our best to solve our own crime problems.
• These tactics have born little fruit as they are akin to attacking an elephant with a fly swatter.

It is not enough to decide how to cut the budget, rather we must use the budget to fix our economy and resulting structural deficits.  Cuts only, will continue the death spiral.

So how can we re-think our city?

Both government officials and citizens are responsible for working through the bold steps that will be required to revitalize Trenton.

Elected and appointed officials have a role

Our elected officials will need to rethink conventional wisdom and stop assuming our hands are tied.  It may take a rather extreme set of actions to right Trenton’s ship.

Perhaps our form of government is in the way? Perhaps the state is in the way?

Let’s dictate our terms and force the legislature to help. Or, if they can’t or won’t help us, go our own way and agree as a city that the state will have to physically stop our revitalization efforts.

Voters have a responsibility

We can’t expect our city officials to act boldly unless the citizens empower the right officials and give them a mandate to act.

As Trentonians begin the process of attending political fundraisers and debates over the next several months, I encourage them to ask candidates about their recovery plan.  You can be sure I will.  I encourage citizen participants at City Council to implore that body to lead rather than follow.  Finally, I’ll offer yet again, to help the current administration work out a recovery plan that the citizens of Trenton can believe in and support.

Use the budget to reach Trenton’s goals

As a city we need to

• Know where we’re going
• Make major structural changes to our revenue and cost structure
• Learn to use the budget as an instrument of policy
• Revamp our budget process

You can’t get there unless you know where you’re going

Yet politicians, and Trenton’s are no exception, are loathe to set measurable goals for the future.

The first step in this journey is to imagine what a revitalized Trenton’s budget would be like.

The best measure of economic rebirth would be for Trenton to pay not 12% of our total municipal and school budget, but rather 50% (as do Hamilton and other middle class cities).

If we were able to pay 50%, we would

• Be at less risk of suffering catastrophe at the hands of a dipping state budget,
• Have built up a much larger economy, and
• Enjoy the resulting amenities both from that larger economy and our ability to fund city services.

To be in a position to pay 50% of our own budget, it stands to reason that just like Hamilton; we’ll need to have a per capita income (CPI) that’s about average for the state.

Today Trenton’s CPI is about $16,600 which compares unfavorably to Hamilton’s CPI of $30,400 and New Jersey’s CPI of $33,200.

See “My discussion for the role of incomes on revitalization” to understand the impact of a higher per capita income.

The second step is ask, “Why we are here?”

This is an easier question than one would think, yet Trentonians spend an awful lot of time debating a foregone conclusion.

Trenton has two reasons to exist as a city.  Numbers three through ten don’t even register.

1. Trenton is a bed-room community to New York, suburban NJ and Philadelphia
2. Trenton is the home to state, county and some federal government

A recent survey of new residents showed that 90% had chosen Trenton because its housing stock was less expensive and more interesting than suburban or big city options.  10% chose Trenton because it was both less costly and closer to their government jobs.  Of the 90% that commute “from” Trenton, all were influenced by lifestyle decisions such as affinity with a community (urban black or gay), appreciation of old buildings or had post-urbanism views on cities such as “green living”.

None of the respondents had children and no one moved to Trenton for the schools.

Our budget should enhance these good reasons to be here rather than attempt to fix the reasons to stay away.

Trenton should be the “best” urban bedroom community on the northeast corridor.  By best, we’ll want to be rated as the most livable city of over 50,000 inhabitants.  This means low taxes, low crime, wonderful housing stock, amenities and access to jobs.

We can already check off one of the five, access to Jobs.  Trenton lies in the middle of the largest job market in the US.

The theory is if we’re a great bedroom community our population will grow with a disproportionate number of middle to high income people.  Eventually we’ll move back to having an average per capita income.

Finally we need a ten year plan that shows how we can reach our goals

Our 10 year plan should show how our annual city budgets will be used to achieve measurable goal of fiscal health.  The very tangible goal I recommend is to move from receiving 88% of our municipal and school funding from the state to 50%.

Such a change in our revenue structure inherently de-risks the budget as we would necessarily be more dependent on property taxes generated by a much wider variety of commercial and residential interests.  Today, when the legislature coughs we catch pneumonia.  This is no way to run a city.

Make major structural changes to revenue and cost

There are six structural changes I recommend to reach the 50% self-sufficiency goal

1. Impose a non-citizen wage tax for no more than 10 years
2. Change our property tax system from value based to land based taxation
3. Invite every law enforcement agency available to help us crush our gangs
4. Re-invent the inspections function to be developer friendly
5. Re-orient spending towards attracting high income residents
6. Sell off all city owned properties

The first two changes will undoubtedly be controversial and will cause conflict with the state.

By instituting a non-citizen wage tax aimed at raising $20M per year we will plug our budget gap.

• Of course we will make Trenton a less desirable business destination in the balance, but business growth isn’t our immediate goal.
• Furthermore, most remaining jobs in Trenton are in the relatively immovable government sector.
• A non-citizen wage tax is a reprehensible non-democratic measure and is a last desperate measure therefore we must not take it lightly and insure that the tax is repealed within ten years.

Value based property tax penalizes investment and therefore prevents economic recovery.

• A land tax on the other hand, penalizes property owners who leave their land vacant, in speculative hopes of a good price.
• By switching from a land tax we put our revitalization interest back in line with our tax policy.
• The land tax can be implemented in such a way as to not greatly affect current tax bills.
• For instance, a gradual system can be put in place that taxes land at a different rate than structures.
• We can also index parts of the city differently over time in order to soften the change

Steps 3-6 are directly within our control

• Timing the use of state and federal law enforcement “surges” with efforts to revitalize specific neighborhoods will let new development take hold
• Re-inventing the property inspections function to be the best in the country is a matter of budget, inspired leadership and management priority
• Spending towards attracting high income residents is a matter of political will and understanding the principals of urban economic development
• Selling off all city owned properties “for nothing” is simple math as every year we hold out for a great price, is a year we don’t get tax revenue

Trentonians have been living with a crumbling infrastructure, sparse amenities and no real economy for many years. However, even with the Water Works sale, we’re facing enormous tax hikes for the foreseeable future.  Within the next 3 years, unless something is done, our tax payment will likely exceed the average homeowner’s mortgage payment.  This will depress home values and drive some homeowners into bankruptcy.

Use the budget as an instrument of policy

In any organization, the budget is the major instrument of policy.  If a company wants to expand sales, it increases the marketing budget.  To cut cost, it reduces expense budgets.  A city is no different.

Step back from the line items and ask what a budget is supposed to do.

If the budget is basically the same as it has been for the last several years, is there any reason to expect a different result in the pace of revitalization?  Common sense suggests not.  Yet Trenton’s budget has seen only incremental changes over the years.

Tax rate hikes penalize newcomers and reward long time residents.

This may be good politics but its terrible policy and offensive to new residents.  A rate hike disproportionately taxes new homes and recent home renovations as the assessed value is more up-to-date. Meanwhile the resident who’s lived here for 30 years and has stood by watching Trenton fail, skates by with an 30 year old assessment  while the newcomer who breathes new life and capital into the city gets fined. Furthermore, every rate hike makes Trenton less attractive for future newcomers.

Re-assessments are part of the solution and can be combined with a shift to land based property taxation

Invest in the budget areas that will fix the problem.

Inspections and Economic Development are two departments that can help right the ship.  Even though both departments have problems, throwing money at them is likely to the good.  There are good ideas floating around on how to make these departments more relevant.  Recreation and Culture also  makes the city more attractive to newcomers.

Essential services like fire, police, and public works may have indirect impact on investment.  However, the linkages are not well documented and are likely non-existent without a specific plan to capitalize on improvements in these areas.

As the efficacy of these essential services is largely unknown, I recommend neither raising nor lowering the budget amounts.  Raising the budget including the police budget would be irresponsible without understanding how the budget change will directly lead to improvement in quality or life or in increasing ratables.

A much better solution to our crime problem is to opt for a temporary solution that allows economic development to take hold and have its good affect on crime.  Inviting the NJ State Police to Trenton has been proposed and would serve as a viable temporary option.  Any such “surge” in police presence must be backed up with aggressive and targeted economic development activity.

There are many non-essential services the city provides as well.  Unfortunately these budget items don’t directly contribute to economic development and must be cut until Trenton can afford them.

Revamp the budget process

While the budget has received more attention over the past year, the process itself is still poorly understood and obviously ineffective.  Several improvements to the process are in order and should be demanded by council and the citizenry

Budget material needs to be easy to obtain and analyze.

• Excel files of the working and statutory budget should be made available to Council and the public.
• All files should be made available on the city web site.
• The administration should look for creative ways to educate all citizens about the budget, the review process and the policy impacts.

A clear timeline should be published for council and the public.

• There should be no confusion from any admin official, councilperson or activist about the process and timeline.
• While there are state checks on the city budget, these must be managed rather than used as an excuse for inaction
• Budget goals can be set before revenues are known and adjusted in a second phase

The process should include a “results” conversation

• We (through our council) need to be in the position of changing the conversation to one of efficacy not staffing and expense levels.
• We should understand the output of each department
• Do they produce enough output for the money we put in (e.g. what’s the cost of animal control catching a dog, what do we spend for each crime cleared)?
• If Trenton’s cost to clear a crime were the best in the nation no one would bat an eye.  If every dollar spent in economic development yielded $100 in new ratables  I’d stop complaining.  If our addiction levels in Trenton actually went down I wouldn’t bemoan dollars spent on recovery centers. If per capita income in Trenton actually outpaced the NJ’s average increase, this blog wouldn’t even exist.
• If the Administration doesn’t force these conversations then City Council must.

Council should demand justification for each budget.

• A system of zero based budgeting process should be put in place to help force discipline over the next several years.
• The budget should be accompanied with textual notes explaining each line item.
• In addition, Directors should be required to explain how their budgets will serve to accomplish the goals of the city.
• The Business Administrator and Mayor should be required to explain how the budget will ensure the overall health of the city especially its fiscal health.

Public review needs to be a central element of the process.

• We can’t expect citizens to support bold action without providing clear explanation of the budget and its proposed impact on the city
• The public needs excellent analysis and information before the review sessions.
• There needs to be a set citizen review format that reduces the need for micro-management.
• Administration and council representative needs to be present to answer questions.