Posts Tagged ‘NJ’

Like many Trentonians, I approached the 2010  mayoral run-off with trepidation and knew I had two less than perfect options.  But there’s always hope. 

Since then, I’ve largely taken the summer off from Trenton politics because I was too depressed about the election including the city council contest in which most of my choices lost.  But still there’s hope. Read the rest of this entry »

by guest writer  – Brian Hill

So I was thinking about what I do for a living, and that I am a municipal public employee… and how I see so much waste everywhere. I also really dislike the perception that we are all just lazy bastards. So how do we really change the City of Trenton employee image and while we are at it, how can we change the image of Trenton? Us, how can we do it as well???  I did some research and wrote this up… Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the thing.  I don’t want to have to be involved in local politics at all.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the Petitioners have won their court case, the voters may need to decide on whether to do the Water Deal.  This is a complicated decision and presumably will be on the ballot this December.  In the meantime, the city will have to pass along at least an $.80 / $100 tax hike.  That’s assuming there’s not another tax hike on top of that to make up for money the State is taking away. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »