The Nicholas Martini Conference on Local Government, Tape 3

uh the the moderator will be Michael Aaron who is the uh senior political correspondent for the New Jersey uh Network host and producer of the reporters Roundtable with Michael Aaron a week a weekly program for New Jersey reporters and the host and co-producer of on the record New Jersey nj's uh weekly public affairs program on the panel we have state senator niia Gil uh she is uh a current state senator was elected in 2001 and served before that in the New Jersey General Assembly uh from 1993 to 2001 she has a uh JD from ruers University um we also have uh the honorable Scott Romana who is the mayor of Wayne who's elected uh mayor in 2001 he was in the Wayne Town Council from 1994 to 1997 and a paic County Freeholder from 1996 to 200000 uh we also have um a member from my own Department I'm pleased to have uh Professor Michael Thompson he's an assistant professor of political science he's the founder and editor of logos an online magazine a journal of modern society and culture he's written at least two books I believe not more and several articles on everything from political Theory to Urban policy uh he has his PhD from uh City University of New York um we are also expecting honorable Jose Torres the mayor of Patterson and hopefully he'll be here soon he was elected mayor in 2002 the first Latino mayor is this working yes good pardon me don't need it you're probably right you're Dr Spirits fan right okay uh for the two uh elected officials who weren't here oh it is necessary ah well come back a second come back a second is this yeah Podium mic all right all okay all right all right they they come from behind the curtain when you uh least expect them uh for the two elected officials here here pardon me no yeah but for the two who are here all right um let me just uh summarize what I heard this morning so that we can pick up from there um uh we were talking largely about the suburbanization of America and of New Jersey um and there was a general sense that suburbanization comes with uh some unwelcome things as well consumerism uh radical individualism a loss of a sense of community that exists in cities but less so in suburbs um and when mayor Tores gets here we'll have a an urban mayor we have a Suburban mayor uh we have a state senator who represents a district that what in the is primarily Suburban primarily Suburban is Clifton in your district is Clifton primarily Suburban would you say Okay um let me start by asking Michael Thompson uh you were here this morning listening uh I heard a notion this morning um from uh either from Elizabeth Cohen the professor from Harvard or from somebody who was asking a question that uh we may have reached a point in our history where suburbanization is ending we've saturated the suburbs and we're about to experience a rebirth of urbanization you want to comment on that or any other thing you heard this morning well I disagree I don't think that uh um that suburbanization is at its end um I think there's um there is this sense you know you see cities like New York you know Manhattan you know Boston Chicago Los Angeles this in our kind of cultural imagination is what a lot of people think of when the term the idea of the city you know especially I uh tell my Urban seminar this semester teach a seminar on Urban crisis and just thinking about the cultural nuances of the word Urban you know they have both simultaneously negative and positive you know uh connotations and I think that what the real problem is I mean there's one whole discourse about the culture of suburbs and what that means for our political culture and the rest that's that's an important thing to discuss but the real Central problem I think especially why New Jersey is such an interesting place to look at because it is this Patchwork qu built of urban Suburban you know uh neighborhoods and communities is the problem that I see is not so much with the suburbanization but rather with the extent to which our urban communities are becoming more and more irrelevant inequalities between urban and Suburban areas are widening and I think um at all levels not just just in terms of you know uh class but there's a there's a new relationship between urban and Suburban which is emerging and I think the inequalities the gaps the spatial dimension of this is actually becoming more and more permanent and enduring and actually those cities you know Patterson the neworks aics um are the cities that we have to start talking about we talk about inequality we talk about race even the gendered aspect ethnic aspect of can I stop you there as a TV guy I'm customed to cutting people off uh to keep a flow going and you you raised an interesting point and the department chair whose first name I heard but can't remember vtina I've never heard that name before so your mother your mother made it up my mother and father your mother and father made it up okay okay Warren and Tina oh all right I figured something out here um Michael just suggested uh that cities are becoming irrelevant uh in the political culture here in this state what do you think about that assertion essentially um and it reflects itself not only in the state politics but in the National politics I mean people are concerned about uh Power bases outside of these major urban areas um people know that um in effect uh this is where money this is where they can GA gather money this is where they are uh voters and so forth in a sort of specific sort of way um cities become less relevant because the real issues the important issues that are especially issues related to economic inequality are not issues that a lot of politicians in general are really really ready to address and you can look specifically at our last national campaign and that uh the national presidential campaign I mean people were not talking about issues of inequality in in cities people were not addressing these issues they were really concerned about you know these talking about what's happening outside of these City when there's very very real problems happening in these urban areas uh ni Gil would you agree that uh that the political discourse either at the national level or at the state level that you participate in uh is ignoring the issues of the Cities no I think the cities are very very relevant I represent um a crosssection I live in Monclair I represent Montclair Glen Ridge East Orange Clifton and West Patterson and you can't get much of a mix in that and what you find is that there is in fact a commonality in issues that uh tie the Suburban areas to those areas that you would uh think would be ear Urban and therefore not have any kind of relationship for example the uh urban areas are becoming increasingly more important given the uh smart growth and the fact that you cannot build and develop anymore in the highlands so and and along with and I agree with that and along with the issue of open space so that where do you go to build you go back to the city cities and the older Suburban uh neighborhoods uh Patterson norc where they have an infrastructure so they are facing the same kinds of Demands imminent domain imminent domain in um an urban area is as important as it is in the Suburban area and of course we know of course I if I can put a plug in here I do do have a bill in um that addresses the issue of imminent do domain one to make it more transparent with public participation and two that the government cannot take your home a a non-lighted area take it from you and give it to a developer that the developer can in fact buy it for you but at the market price that you to determine so you will find that the issues of imminent domain in the urban areas are equally as important in the Suburban areas as to what we will do in terms of and you can cut me off anytime you want what what we will do in terms of how our cities will look and the second thing that we also are working on is the idea of the big box what happens when a Walmart comes in and the state has already invested Millions in downtown uh Redevelopment in both Urban and suburban and then they come in and take from that uh client base and uh the business and the jobs go to another area and what happens to the downtowns in both Clifton Montclair Patterson norc East Orange and wherever so there are those issues of since you cannot develop in an area that the suburban and urban areas really have more similar issues than dissimilar but the discour how you discuss them people want to make it different but really when you make a critical analysis it's the same issue in the same place and how do we arrive at a solution I was about to stop you there but you you're aul you knew when to stop uh um mayor Tories uh we just started we just started and we've been talking about uh cities and suburbs all day here and uh this panel got underway with the suggestion from the gentleman on your left that cities have lost power cities are uh becoming almost irrelevant I want to go to the mayor of Wayne who's the mayor of a Suburban town and ask him to pick up on what Senator gild just suggested that cities and suburbs really share the same problems what what do you say to that well I I think that the senator is right on point on with with respect to the highlands act I think the impact of that act is very significant and to overlook the significance in terms of the importance and the growth in in the urban centers is is not being it's going to force development in the urban centers there's no there's no question about that and you have to really because I don't want to repeat exactly what the senator said just coupling the statistic in regarding the growth of the population in the state of New Jersey that is projected to occur over the next 10 20 years or and Beyond and I don't unfortunately have that that that statistic at my fingertips right now I I know it's I know it's very significant it's it's million ions of people projecting growth you have to have housing for all the people that are going to be coming into the state and since you can't build in the highlands you can't build in the suburbs certainly as as easily as you once could and and I have to tell you from from our perspective here in Wayne we have we are in our uh humble opinion we are overdeveloped as it is for what kind of community we want to be so we don't want to have the residential housing growth here and between the highlands act and then the attitudes of elected officials in this even the Suburban communities are going to keep on pushing housing growth to occur in the urban centers let me stop there mayor cores that sounds like a good thing for you and Patterson yes no absolutely continue to broker those uh Mount luro RCA agreements to build housing where our neighboring towns the most affluent towns have have acquired a tools to to circumvent them to build affordable housing in their Town um the issue is that if towns like patteron doesn't take advantage then where are the people going to go where's the affordable housing stock is going to uh get generated um and more and more I think the frustration of people road rage and and wanted to have a little more quality time to take two to three hours of your schedule um to be on a road less time with your loved ones less time that you're being productive so I think that u u that's the reason why more people are moving back to to the inner city uh Patterson historically one of the oldest industrial city in the nation uh the crad of Industry um but we're Hub um very few cities could could um boast that we have over 80 different ethnic groups uh uh in our city so yeah yes we got our share parades and and diversity and that's a good thing that's not a problem to have our traffic and that's not a problem to have either but uh I think that as as as towns in Suburbia uh continue to Niche to to create this this prototype uh city which many times individuals that moved out of Patterson moved out because they wanted the bigger and the better uh um not so much that they just didn't like City living um so Patterson in this past two years three years uh under my leadership has been uh courting uh those people courting those immigrants um our industrial Bas is not longer there but uh our courts our service our restaurants you think we've hit a period in time in history where the cities are going to generally speaking now the cities of New Jersey say are going to uh experience a rebirth I I believe so mik I think that as as towns such as Wayne and hathorne and Franklin Lakes uh uh become you know two acre community and so regulated on their zoning uh um I think it's going to come back to the inner city where where it all started um let me ask anybody to to uh we were talking about the the suburbanization uh of America earlier today and uh I let me throw this out to anybody who wants to pick it up uh looking back over the last 30 40 years uh as this suburb of Wayne developed and became what it is today which I guess is a highly developed uh suburb uh did Patterson suffer did uh has Patterson suffered because of the development of Wayne next door so um you know in the 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s when the growth of the housing stock was occurring here a lot of the a lot of the people who were moving into those homes were from Patterson my father's one of them my father grew up on monair Avenue in Patterson uh that's where he was born and raised and then you know uh when he was going to get married and have his own family he moved he moved out of the city some people don't like City living I mean that's really what it came down to for them they they wanted a yard they wanted more space around them unfortunately that space started evaporating as more and more housing was developing I mean Wayne for anybody who doesn't know this was a farming Community I mean most of this town was a whole bunch of farms over over uh in historically and and unfortunately housing developments were taking up all of those Old Farm plots but the issue of how the cities will be reborn and housing stock needed I I just want to mention one thing I I don't Envision just lowincome moderate income housing being the the the housing stock I I I would think that you're going to have all sorts of of uh economic um all representation from all economic levels moving back into the cities like like The Rebirth of Hoboken by way of example I mean it was a city that was was tired and was old and it has been reborn now that's a unique situation because of its proximity to New York City but but it's going to happen at least we also have to hope it's going to happen in cities like Patterson and Newark Beyond about the East Orange in your legislative district is that a city that is experiencing any kind of rebirth yes it is and I think there are uh interesting questions the rcas are where a wealthier town um in order to fulfill their affordable housing will give that money credit to an urban area I do have issues with that because that can produce a concentration of uh poor people in one area stands for regional contribution agreement between a Suburban town and a and a receiving City go ahead and so what it does it uh can perpetuate a kind of segregated Society that's segregated based upon income and if all of the if I if we in town x uh build $2 million homes and we then give to City Y our RCA we don't we in town x with the $2 million homes we won't have a mixture in our town out uh and I think the issue of affordable housing in the Suburban and those other communities also has a social context and if you look at statistics New Jersey is 47th in the nation in segregated schools because why their housing pattern has been segregated let me ask mayor Tor if you still like these Regional contribution agreements um even if they end up putting the uh low income in your city City and leaving the suburbs uh fairly segregated and the city's segregated I kind of part I agre with uh the senator um but that's the way the the deal was structured the the legislature allow that for towns could actually come into this agreement what I've concentrated in Patterson was to along the lines what uh uh the mayor Wayne indicated is to create a balance a mixture of commercial uh market rate and affordable so when you take the RCA agreement uh the RCA contract or monies and you use those dollars to leverage other dollars to provide housing opportunities for those who would no longer have that those uh those means uh and created allow it to utilize it as an economic tool to leverage or bring value monetary value to a bigger development that's going to give me a commercial strip that's going to give me market rate housing and at the same time uh uh live up to our co- agreements of affordability then then then I think that it's up to the user how he uses it you're not going to create a concentration of of of low housing because then basically what we're doing is exercising or uh utilizing the leverage of those dollars to be to create a public housing developments and we know that uh um what what bring great problems public housing development utilizing dollars uh the federal government dollars has brought to municipality as a burden let me ask ni Gil to go back to East Orange for a second tell us uh how you view it and its Health at the moment uh I I think that uh with the issue of the Redevelopment and and on the issue of the rcas it's not simply from uh what the city does cuz they can be creative it it's what the Suburban communities l uh and I think that when you talk about a social uh accountability uh for a diverse Community uh so it's more what the suburbs lose by not having affordable housing and having that kind of interaction with other people before we go to what has Wayne done with its affordable housing uh um fully compli with all the requirements that we've had to comply with that mean you've built the housing or you entered into an Regional contribution agreement with the city the formula is um in our case the first round numbers required us to build 1,000 housing units we sold off 500 of those units we then went through the formula of so much Rehabilitation housing so so much senior housing and the balance of the low to moderate income housing but that's not the issue see the issue the problem you have with the formula is the 5:1 ratio every unit of affordable housing that a developer builds you get four units of market rate housing and that's where it stinks for us because these guys they they're not developers aren't here to be friendly to people who are poor they're here it to make a lot of money so what they do is they build these huge complexes and they put this much affordable housing in their in their complex that's what's wrong about the system killing towns so of your thousand units that you were required to build how many did you actually provide in your town and how many have you farmed out to cities 500 500 okay let me ask uh Professor Thompson um you've been hearing these officials uh suggested that that uh that you're wrong uh that the cities are not that the cities are not irrelevant uh you you want to defend your initial point my basic point was obviously not that cities are irrelevant but that you said it what I said what I what I what I'm what I'm really getting at was and I should have probably said this which I didn't say which is there is um there's kind of a model in urban economics a kind of classical model of urban of of how cities form and it goes back to you know a German theorist in 1827 Nam font tunin who said basically you have the center city and then basically you have land rents which decrease as you move away from the center city in the center of the city is where the market all this you know Marketplace takes place this is where a lot lot of economic activity dense concentrations of population as you leave that Center City rents decrease because of distance from so you have this core and you have these peripheral circles called funin Rings this is still the still the basic model in neoclassical Urban economic theory and what I'm saying is that works fine when you talk about Manhattan you talk about Chicago and broadly broadly speaking that makes sense but if you decide to put your core as something like say Patterson and then the outer rings of suburbs around it I think there's an increasing economic irrelevance of that core Urban region one of the reasons is because there's a the word segregation has to be brought up here it's absolutely true I think ethnically racially classwise uh this this problem between the relation Urban and Suburban basically boils down to kind of class ra racial ethnic segregation in America the other thing is um what Elizabeth Cohen brings up in her book which is this not which is the it one of the things that shopping malls and M ification does is transfer that old function of the city center which is where you go to the city center to buy things and you know Patterson I was born in Patterson and my mother used to talk about how when she was young they'd go into uh the city center and buy things and come back out and whatever now you really don't need to go there right Newark maybe sometimes people go there for the for the Art complex they have the the NJ Pack thing or you go maybe some of the restaurants in the Ironbound District other other than that there's really no one that I go to Patterson I go to the Arab neighborhood and buy things there and food and stuff uh but honestly I think think the Suburban Rings really see the cities as irrelevant and I think that's increasing the the sense of segregation you there Scott Rana do you go into Patterson to shop or to buy food I I buy Arab food in Patterson too but go ahead do you I don't go to shop too often for anything so you're off the I have to tell you the truth I work as a lawyer and I work as a as a mayor and that's about all the time I have but I mean I I um you know it's ironic that you're both saying the Arab section for the food is actually that does bring me down there too on occasion but the uh um no not really but again I really don't I don't go to Willer Brook either all too often so I have to tell you the truth I'm not a good suggested in her opening remarks that the big box the Walmart uh thing is threatening the both cities and Suburban towns or maybe I don't yeah is that right you so is Walmart a force for evil in this world I mean I think Walmart is a force that we should recognize and uh be able to uh partner with in a more Progressive Way that uh maintains the balance between what Walmart what Walmart can get as opposed to what they want and uh what should be happening in um our suburban and urban centers in terms of Commerce I am uh chair of the Commerce Committee uh in the Senate so the issue and we know in the wealth of the nation they talk about Adam talks about uh small businesses being the backbone of American democracy and that that is not only the economic engine but that that model also drives the philosophical uh precepts that underline American democracy so uh I think we have to uh have a partnership in a balance uh we should recognize that in our public policy issues because the way we make the uh statutory requirements drives the public policy the public policy doesn't drive the legislation the legislation drives the public policy and so when you do Highlands I didn't know some people may not have known that it would have effect on Church Street in Mont Clair where now and I've had a law office there for 22 years where now uh the developers come in and some of my best friends are developers uh developers come in and the stores on Church Street that had been there for 30 years they no longer can afford to be there and so they they are displaced in this rush for redevelopment and it's based upon how we have decided as a society that I agree with you shouldn't have it in the highlands we should maintain open space and um and briefly the issue of uh the imminent domain also in the suburbs because there's always that downtown part that everybody that's a little Cy and uh you know if you could if you could have them secede from the town it would be just fine of course that doesn't happen in Wayne and I understand that but uh you know I mean even in Monclair and I'm I'm being serious so you still have within the Suburban districts that issue of where would should the development be and who has a right to maintain their uh personal in their uh property after theyve been there 30 years uh and uh have been able to keep the city together so I think it is multifaceted um we're in the midst of a gubernatorial campaign in New Jersey uh in which the number one issue in the state is property taxes uh and most of us who pay any attention to New Jersey government know that New Jersey uh has more local governments uh per square mile than any state in the nation by far uh we have a mayor in from Wayne we have a state senator who represents five different municipalities five and we have a a city mayor um does any of you think that New Jersey has too many local governments and you should sort of throw in the towel and hand the keys to the guy next door I'm I'm going to jump on that a little bit I I think that if the question is that there's a redundancy in government I would say yes um however there there needs to be some streamlining in order to be able to get a handle on on Appropriations and budget matters um we continue to see duplications duplications between x amount of superintendant of schools duplication between x amount of uh police Chiefs school boards um so I think that we need to regionalize a little bit better so that we be able to to um do those traditional things as centralized purchasing and Contracting and instead of buying five different types of widgets by one so that we could uh actually maintain value to to that purchase um Patterson has been kicked around and where the county seat is being the county seat where and I got to add that you know bringing back to the value of of of of inner city a city like Patterson um sure uh you go to buy a tie in Willer Brook but you come to your hospital in Patterson you come to your courts in patteron you come to your jails in Patterson you come to your Federal Building in Patterson you come to all your major transportation Huds in Patterson these are all exempt from from the formula uh um so talking about assets those are key assets that inner city brings uh um to the table so I think that there's room to to regionalize a little bit more um to understand the the needs um and done in a in a holistic approach um piggybacking a little bit what the senator said about eminent domain I I agree we shouldn't be developing at the request re of developers but when you do something like Patterson did uh uh uh during my Administration first thing I did was I asked the governing body to allow me to do a new master plan and then the Master Plan gave evidence that we needed to come up with areas in need of of Redevelopment uh that was very evident did you have to take some homes uh yet there no because part of my strategy and and going out and going to the public and asking them what do they want how do they want to see their neighborhood for Med uh and redeveloped based on that the principle that no one knows the community better than the one who lives here uh uh whether it's the Dublin section the Middle Eastern section uh the Latino section you you make them players they they're stakeholders is that why we need all these local governments because nobody knows better than the people who live there what the place needs that's the reason why I say we need to be a little bit more regionalized so that we could get a better perspective on the needs of of of the people and then establish government to to to uh provide the services to those needs Scott Romano what's your take on whether we have too many local governments I just think that why I said you know that's a that's a tough issue is the the the attitudes of the people that live in the various communities they want to keep their local government that's and that's the tough battle is the culture that's been that we've all been brought up with you just know you've got your local mayor your local counsel your local police department and I you know you you see the frustration with property taxes and there's no question that you could actually cut down the cost and cut down the property tax bill by consolidation I don't I don't think anybody can really have an argument with that I just I just see that the battle line that will be drawn and I I don't think it's a party battle line I think that you know this the legislature that would probably have to take that step it would be Mayhem for a while to try and navigate through that people want their local government but Michael Thompson what do you what do you think about that people yeah people want their local governments it's fine I think the hon I mean it's an oldfashioned like Social Democrat or something but I I think there's just not enough uh federal government in terms of in terms of I mean one of the reasons for uh the rising of uh local um you know property taxes is because you start to have these municipalities these these cities and towns having to take care of a lot more of them of their own economic you know needs and uh that the federal government has slowly over the past 20 years crept out of of uh of of you know helping um I mean for example in Newark um there during the war on poverty what uh mayor Tores said this is this was the basic model that was used in other words the federal government didn't go in and say okay we're going to go in this big bureaucratic apparatus and give you just throw money at this at the problem there were Community boards the community uh groups formed which said okay look draw up lists of the things that you want or need in your community you know public goods and whatever they may be you know what give us a list and these you had all these Federal bureaucrats who go out there and meet and say okay let's okay we can we can probably fund this project and that project and this project that project right and I think that the the problem that happens is when you rely more and more on each of these you know more and more localization right the problem becomes that these inequalities between these different municipalities get grow sharper and also as these tax you know property taxes rise you start erecting tax barriers so that there's less and less movement from people coming to be able to get out of the Cities who want to maybe migrate out and therefore that's what I was saying before that you have this you start having this kind of cave in effect where people can't get out Nia gild do you share that view that uh the inequalities are are sort of hardening uh there's less Mobility between City and suburb uh no because the district I represent there's a a great deal of Mobility uh people move in from Patterson in pade uh Clifton is one of the most diverse cities um in uh New Jersey and also um in the discussion of what makes it uh similar uh my position has been and they said oh well you know you'll never get elected in Clifton because you know it's demographics uh were at least for the voters would be Eastern Europeans and so we are so into AP parite politics that we fail to realize that there's a commonality and so if uh I have a constituent in East Orange and her mother doesn't have health insurance and I have a constituent in Clifton and her mother's polish and she doesn't have health insurance let's get real our mothers don't have health insurance so you come around and issue for example property tax taxes you would think that the discussion of property taxes would be in Monclair and um Glen Ridge but we have that discussion in East Orange because in terms of their income the people in East Orange pay more property taxes percentage of their incomes in Clifton and Montclair and Glen Ridge so that there is a common uh commonality and we have a dialogue that's based upon that commonality and then we can go to issues of regionalizing for the purpose of purchasing a fire truck or for the purpose of purchasing paper but because we are so much into a parite politics in New Jersey I'm black you're green I live in the suburbs I live in fourth ward Monclair you live in up Monclair you live in West Monclair uh it seems that the only time we come together is when we are attacked and then our enemies make us understand that we have everything in common and then when that set when that threat recedes we're back into our a Pary politics that I find to be intellectually dishonest I find it to be socially repugnant and so I am an African-American woman uh you may think I'm Afrocentric my great-grandmother was Irish and uh if you come into my house that's one of the people you will see uh and she couldn't marry my grandfa great-grandfather but she loved him nonetheless so that we come from that kind of culture but in New Jersey uh the way we practice politics and the way we have discussions about public issues it drives us apart and it does not bring us together that point brings me uh to uh a point that was raised by my friend Durer McLoud this morning in the discussion um uh he he was beaning I think if I'm paraphrasing him correctly the lack of a sense of community uh in in this state or among modern people Circa 2005 but I hear for example I hear mayor Roman saying that if you uh tried to do away with local government or merg local governments people would Rebel uh that suggests that in fact there is a sense of community in a place like Wayne New Jersey where there's really no downtown as far as I know maybe I haven't seen it but uh so so yeah so so do we have the same kind of sense of community that they had on the prair uh and uh or or is this something that's that's vanished I think it's it it's different than what it was you know in a in a Years Gone by but everything changes over time so I you know I think there is a strong sense of community for what is the modern sense of what that means I mean you've get um a huge number of people involved in the athletic programs just by way of example who volunteer their time to coach and and there's hundreds and hundreds or thousands of of kids that participate in that I mean that's certainly a community oriented thing I mean and people they sport that might be a Wayne that might be so so that may be a bad one to pick except that it was an easy one to pick I mean the people who serve in the fire departments the first aid squads that are all volunteer and you know I mean everybody who who uh through the churches and the synagogues and I mean all of that involvement is community oriented um I I don't I don't want to jump off the subject we we trying to go to but I do think the one thing that we left out of the mix with the discussion a moment ago is the funding for school systems which is really the big problem with property taxes and it's we all love the schools I've got one of our commissioners sitting right here Jane Hutchinson from from our Wayne Board of Education I mean I don't want to walk out of here thinking that I'm anti- School clearly not anti- school I'm very much supportive of the school system but the funding of school systems Statewide is is is the issue and for looking around the room with students and if you own your home I don't take offense to the statement or or if you already know about this but when I first got my when I bought my first and I looked at my property tax bill I didn't know how it got divided up 55% of the money goes to the school system it's your biggest portion of what you send out in your property tax bills so that's that's the ma that's the major portion of what you spend what you pay for and how are we going to address that that issue because other states do it differently I mean New Jersey just relies too much on property taxes to fund the system next now if you're going to fund it you know I understand where the legislature and the governor comes from because you don't want to just say oh fine we're going to raise your income taxes through the roof and give you everything back to reduce the property tax bill so they look like the bad guy when I understand they don't want to but there's got to that's where the problem has to be addressed I mean you need and you need to know the money that you're going to need to function in the system every town wants the type of education system that they today so we're up against the real challenge because you know uh Wayne needs we're at 112 110 million this year you know Patterson's at 400 million 500 million get let's get the school funding in one second I just want to I just want to pursue that Community sense of community thought no no no that's all right it was a good it was a good path to lead us down I just want to stay where we are for one second uh mayor Tores are are people in Patterson proud of Patterson not only those in Patterson but those who left Patterson are still proud of Patterson uh uh uh yeah I I have a sense um over 2,000 congregate in Florida just to get together with old paronian and everywhere I go uh Roots come back to Patterson and I think that that uh uh coming back to that to that Cradle to that Hub of immigrants and migrants where where grandfathers and aunts and aunts and mothers and dads that that was a town that gave them opportunity that was a town that they could still get their their uh uh um their ethnic dishes and that was a town that that gelled them together and sure as they uh moved up the economic scale they decided to move to Wayne to to Franklin Lakes to hathorne to West Patterson the majority of the people who lived around the surrounding neighborhood of Patterson all came from Patterson and at one time or another they still come back uh over 30,000 Vehicles arrive at Patterson daily uh to support that City uh so I think they're still proud now granted you know the economy of scale changed thing has changed but I really think that utilizing our diversity as that fuel engine of bringing value back to the town it's that common ground that you could still go out there and connect to your roots and uh those are the strengths that inner city brings uh Street smarts i' rather have uh uh my daughter raised right on uh on the street that we live on for years because sure she get a perspective of of what life is like about when I get home or Mom or Grandma but is that street smarts that she get within the city of Patterson that's really going to uh uh kick her up a notch to to to coin a phrase from uh from from Emerald so um those that's that's great things that bring value now I want to go back to the issue of the tax uh um when and and regionalization and home rule when municipalities have to send out the tax bill that gets divvied up in four parts as Scott indicated and have no no bearings the day you want to bring accountability to taxation let everybody send their own tax bill out now you'll see that there'll be more accountability that the Board of Education won't cost x amount of million that County government won't cost x amount of million that every time legislators want to do a referendum that's going to offer a tax uh uh my portion of my tax bill basically has maintain uh I've been holding my own but I have to find the extra money of all those other ones that I'm not I don't have the power of the pur strings to control um anybody want to add anything on this uh Community sense of community question or shall we stay with with the school funding situation what is have we uh do what's the definition because I think people can form communities around issues even though they don't live in the same town uh that they can work together uh and that they can come together uh is a sense of community um simply our identification with and identification with a geographical location uh or are there other uh kinds of uh Community there do you think that people do identify with their town in your District are people proud of their town are they is there a community spirit in your town in your towns I went to Mona high school and uh my family's been there for a hundred years so it's a little difficult for for me to say not that I don't have mounty born and a mounty uh breed and when I die I'll be a mounty dead but I I I don't have a lot of identification with my T but I think that people move in and people are more transient and so you may not have that identification in Monclair it may be a place that you've moved to from New York for other reasons but you do have a sense of community around an issue and so um are we using a scale of community that is not always or a definition of community that's not necessarily uh totally encompassing of what has been happening in the last 10 or 20 years um thiron figures that he we he lives in Monclair we live in Monclair but his part of his sense of community is Old Country cuz he came from great Ben Kansas so but he has an identification with Monclair but because of the internet he has a sense of community of where he was born so it's how we discuss that and bring people together on the basic um idea Professor Thompson any thought on the sense of community whether it's uh non-existent or thriving or somewhere in between I I I mean I think there's obviously the senses of Community um I think though with especially when you talk about local politics and I used to be a a reporter for a local newspaper in North Jersey what town um it was wanu and uh Ringwood and all there so I'd had to go every month to these to to the uh you know Town meetings and and one of the things that kind of really strikes you is that I think the sense of I you talk about real the idea of having like a sense of a political Community I don't think really exists I mean a sense of community like okay I identify with where I where I'm from whatever maybe block parties or something maybe but I think there's a sense that uh citizenship now in terms of that classical idea of political citizenship I mean is basically about it's C basically defined by self-interest taxpayers made this morning here was that the we we've we that it's weak this sense of community that we're all out for ourselves now I think basically that's I mean I don't know how deep it is but I think not me but but I think uh I think that um and know this came up in in uh uh Professor Cohen's talk where um with the black family that was moving into uh uh was it te I don't Le I'm sorry uh but I know something similar did happen you know in tck right and in other words it was you know in that line you know probably a nice guy but you know my value my house is get around $22,000 I think that kind of sense that is the the kind of the kind of taxpayer citizenship this idea like my what's the reason I the only reason I'm going to read the local papers to see what's not just what the kids did in the sports team but also like if there's anything on the bill it's going to make my taxes go if they're going to reassess the house this becomes politics rather than that CL classical I don't get romantic about it but the Aristotelian idea of the good citizen which was that you know you do things for the public good you do things to put the community over self-interest that was the classical ideal in Aristotle's politics which inspired basically 1,00 years of of political flaw all right let me stop you there um two more points before we wrap up in about five minutes uh one does anybody have a concrete suggestion for what the state should do to relieve the burden on property taxes as the funding source for education I mean you know what the simple answer is you don't have to recreate the wheel there's a lot of states that have done a lot of different things to to uh to alleviate property tax problem or never had the property tax problem because they have a different system so we can look to all those other states a as uh as models for us to follow and in this case we're not worrying about being the leader at this point right now we've got a major problem it is the problem it is the you know I'll tell you right now I am running for reelection right now I know it's a big issue in the campaign for me you know with between myself and my opponent um and uh you know I keep on stressing the fact that it is not a Wayne Township problem it is a state of New Jersey problem and it really is I mean every during budget season February March April May pick up the paper read it every day and every single article from every single Town always talks about the property tax increase and they're all saying the exact same I mean literally a reporter has the easiest job in the world during that time of year because we all say the same thing contractual salary increases health care costs going up um you know you have the side issues like garbage collection insurance pension why I said health health insurance right or all insurance and that's it because most towns nowadays I have to tell you the truth we have stripped out everything that would be uh discretionary spending so we have to hike some other tax statewide right well shift the burden I mean property taxes and whether you go to sales tax whether you use the you know the casino monies which were always supposed to be used to balance out School uh is school funding issues but the frustration is very clear the public has had it up to hear with property taxes but but then goes back to your other issue you know is the public mad enough to say well okay we'll consolidate the towns and that's where it gets really interesting it almost comes back to your community issue too because there is that sense of community yes there's apathy yes there's yes there's um you know people are people are self-centered in in a lottery respects every time you have an issue the big crowd comes out when it's the issue in their backyard but at the end of the day there's still this sense of of pride in in in where they live and uh you know the the interest that just one final note on that I mean we have a thing called Wayne day every year we get 30,000 people at this event I mean I I think that's a good indication that people enjoy you're giving away money or no no just come and visit go ahead mayor I just want to add to the piggy back what the professor said before earlier I think that if we look at uh um the famous Abbott decision the courts that that clearly it was the in uh the imbalance of expenditures of one region to another which put us in this mess so obviously it's about the funding source and then if we look at the role that that local government pay uh state government pay County government state government and then federal government that if we want to be competitive if we truly believe that that uh education is that ticket to power that education is what's going to advance Us in technology and agriculture if we really truly believe that then let's let's put our money where our mouth is and the federal government is going to have to take a role if we could build third world countries if we could spend endless unlimited amount of resources and yet when we're coming back to basically take care of home uh we're not doing that but yet from an early age we say oh your ticket to to power is education and yet the federal government is not doing enough I'm going to take the Bold approach I really think that the answer if it's the money and those poor districts was getting less and those wealthier districts was getting maybe even more that the only way to balance it out is truly through an income tax fun education on that note I think it's time to wrap up I just want thanks I think the both you mean you don't have the you don't have the answer either oh I don't have it other okay let me let me let me just leave you where let me leave you where I meant to begin I I always like to begin a speaking uh engagement with a joke and I I forgot that today um so I'm searching my mind for a local government joke and I have one it's not really on the topic we're discussing here but it's relevant to local government it has to do with Hudson County government and Hudson County for those who may not know is legendary as uh uh the county in New Jersey where the rules are stretched the farthest uh to put it kindly and uh sort of a home of machine politics traditionally and the Machine once back years ago uh decided that they need needed to uh find a job for this political hack who had helped them get elected and they had to do something with them so uh they made him they decided to make him you you know this one they decided to make him uh head of the office of weights and measures so they put out a press release and they said tomorrow we'll have a press conference to formally name him head of the office of weights and measures so the next day the press conference a couple reporters assembled around they introduced the guy everybody applauds he's now head of the office of Waits and measures any questions and first reporter Wise Guy reporter raises his hand and says to the guy who just got the appointment yeah Joe how many ounces in a pound and the guy says come on guys this is my first day uh thank you all for uh being with us today just hold it just a second um I'd like for um we have a couple of quick minutes I'd like to open the floor up to see if there were some questions from the floor just very short because we don't have a lot of time for questions but just one or two questions perhaps for from the p uh for the panelist uh the woman in the light blue sweater B County student Exchange program would be probable or beneficial to your students who in parison have a very good GPA are very involved s like that to kind of have them have the experience of a Suburban education so to to EXP Expos them to the different different teaching styles cuz I know I lived in Mars Township before I moved to North Elizabeth but when I live in Mars Township I'm right on the border line where I had the choice to go to Mars Township highve which was Mars view Mars Mars Hills or something like that or I could go to marown high school I chose marown high school because of of a diversity of N eth Miss so I was wondering if you believe that this County Exchange program bringing the students who are acad academically Advanced I don't want to say smarter but acally Advanced within your county and allowing them to come into Wayne so that they have that experience um I I'm a I'm a firm believer in exchange students and given an opportunity of letting people go and find their own little niches uh we've done it um I just recently formulated an exchange with with even a sister city in in cerno Italy uh uh so those are good things and uh they're very positive and and you know um we continue to do it and based on you you said the key word that you chose to go where there was you there was a there was that diversity I pride I pride that the city of Patterson um is one of the most diverse cities and you find your Niche it's a wonderful feeling to to go into different countries every other Block in your town and so there's that brings value that you will never get in the textbooks you have to go out the year you have to experience it uh um so I welcome that and uh it was the same thing with with with tech or votch uh um 70% of the students 80% of the students are all Patterson students but yet is a Vocational Technical High School the bulk of it gets paid by Patterson so you know sure regionalization exchange it's it's a wonderful ful thing it's a wonderful thing I encourage you question for uh I was happy you brought up the Abit program uh I'm from a upper middle class small town and I know my town was affected by the cap uh that the legislature put on the raising of property taxes where we no longer have the money to fund our own school system way we would like to but we're panging into the ad program which I view many others view as whereas the Abid schools aren't doing the job of educating the cities that they're in and I was just wondering how you felt because I was reading an article in the star Leger the other day where the SEC P off funding on a lot of patterns in schools and a lot of other schools in order to go ahead with a handful of experimental projects which will cost 12 times more than just a regular school I putting a do over Stadium a rooftop Stadium or apartments on a high school and it seems to to me being from a small well to-do town that we're paying in and with property taxes and it's just being wasted by through the app decision and through the SEC um I think Senator Gilgo answer more exactly to the intent of the legislation but I will tell you this part the SEC it's a whole uh um the cap from my understanding was done to put a hold on the administrative components when you continue to look at districts p in particular and maybe in your town the legisl you can't keep on moving the administrative end endlessly openly by just introducing these budgets because administratively you want that that's that's what we call wasteful spending now is it in the books is it in the education no you'll see that a great portion of the school budgets is to administratively so the intent of the cap was to get a handle on it that you just cannot continue to introduce this runaway budget and think that it's because of Education if it's for Education that's one thing but if it's for the uh uh the fat and it then then or the slippage as as Scott was mentioning earlier they're not so now when we talk about the construction on the SEC it was truly in intent that for example in Patterson we don't have the luxury to shut down a half a billion dollar corporation that has no Community design and no Community use that would not only utilize that expenditure as an economic development tool but at least at minimum since Mommy and Grandpa and dad are still working at at 6:30 7:30 to be able to use those new school designs that have a school a community design component so that the community that could have leverage the support instead of shutting down that Corporation at 2:30 3:30 in the afternoon that we thought uh was the intent between looking at Alternatives whether it's we having putting Health Care in our schools whether we're having gymnasium uh uh additional soccer facilities in order to support uh a more geriatric or or physical education component that in inner cities we don't have uh uh my Fields I can't keep up with my Fields because we go from soccer to track to to baseball to football they don't get a rest and I have to hydro seed it and never give a chance to grow those other more affluent towns they got that astro turf they got that stuff that you could run on it for 5 years and it always look green right put those Ms that can build 12 Patterson schools to go to building one experimental school when Patterson needs the school the the experimental component on the Renaissance under the SEC and the Renaissance Zone I think there were seven areas for example Patterson was earmarked for one and the one that was ear marked was hinchliff Stadium okay now under the profa of the school their 5year facility plan they they opted to Ren to take hin Stadium the art the O the the oldest outdoor Arena and the largest prior to Continental being built many very historical components to create that into a sports Business Academy so that we leverage the dollars where all the towns want to buy build new Arenas and and and new stadiums to take one that had fallen to Urban Decay Revitalize it and use it as a school facility it's that combination so those seven Renaissance zones was not only to just say oh we're just going to spend $32 million on Hench Stadium it's what role could we invest public dollars to leverage the economic development of the entire Regional area of the Great Fall Festival that then uh 6 months passed and then became a state park and if you looked at today's paper thousands of people came to visit uh the Great Falls uh uh the largest east of the Mississippi in order to see where Hamilton and George Washington sat there and said we're going to be the first plan industrial city because we cannot depend on foreign trade any longer as we develop and roll out so C manufacturing plant sales locomotive you name it Patterson has been the first so we have to make those Investments where years ago we've been building out the other cities and and we neglected our own inner cities I voted against the Caps I was probably uh one of two or three Senators who did uh because I thought that it was uh unfair to Suburban districts and that in Suburban districts uh unless we change the funding formula the school funding formula you can add more money and you still will simply in terms of percentage uh still um receive the same uh there are two things to change the school funding formula to more accurately reflect Suburban districts for example in Monclair because you go by property value as part of the equation you can have two or three people um like Mr Aaron used to live in a two Mill $200 million house and then you have me but we're going to base uh the equation on a couple of $200 million houses and then say well Monclair doesn't need uh that much money because they're property Rich so we have to change the school funding formula to accurately reflect uh the Suburban needs one and uh you find in most a great deal of the educational issues special ed that's mandated by the federal government but the federal government only pays 40% so that we need to do it on that basis uh and for the SEC um we put in um when I was in the assembly we would not vote for the bill unless you also made money available to the Suburban districts within the bond um and that happened and uh the Suburban districts uh were able to receive money to do uh the the uh kind of building they need needed while we still follow the Mandate of uh the Abbot mandate and we're the Constitutional imperative to do that there's very little uh there's no room wiggle room uh uh the SEC was a a disgrace um so we're all agree on that there that that sentiment though is is the point of frustration that we see a lot in you know there there's a real issue between the urban and Suburban areas because urban areas are funded what do you get Joey about 90% of your budget 95% of your budget is funded through the state and from state income taxes so every time you're making income you're paying income taxes and you're funding the schools in the urban centers and then in the suburbs we're funding 90% 95% of our schools through property taxes so you know the the person who owns the Suburban home who's paying an income tax they're paying towards the schools in the urban center they're paying towards their own schools through property taxes so they're getting a double whammy and it's exact where you see that you know we see the frustration in in the suburbs and we you know people like me and you know who are understanding of the of the of the broad issue you can't say well you can't cut off the urban Center's education because the key to success I mean Joey hit it right on the head the key to success in this country is to have a good education it's the only way you're going to get ahead it's the only way you're going to succeed in in in in terms of getting a good job and being able to afford uh to get the income to be able to afford a family and and and and and progress through through uh through life but with that aside I mean it really comes down to changing the funding structure you can't have the Suburban communities constantly funding themselves through property taxes for their education it it's just got to change and and I think and I think that the senator really you know recognizes that herself because of having the the the areas in of communities that that she represents um it's it's a challenge but it does have to be dealt with and you hope that this is a gubinatorial election year one of these two guys is going to win and one of and the winner has better take better well take on the challenge because if they don't four years from now if we're sitting here say discussing the same exact things we were discussing 8 12 16 years ago that means that they're not doing their job well we do know that when uh Governor Whit cut the income tax so let's so we I'm just saying saying so that we could have a historical perspective on why why we are at this point so it can help us make better decisions in the future when she cut the income tax that we all were a great deal of people voted for and wanted the income tax is constitutionally mandated to uh Municipal relief which means you have more money uh to give from the state back to the municipalities for income tax relief we and I think when we went for cutting the income tax we went for the very um ideas that they were talking about self-interest it will give me $500 back we didn't look at what the $500 that we own may have gotten back if it came together as a community what it was doing so we decided uh in part because of our self-interest that we were going to have our income tax so that removed billions of dollars from that stream now if I was running for reelection at this point but I won't be running for two years how many of you understanding that you're intelligent you're Progressive and we understand the erosion of our tax base and for these Mayors who are doing an absolutely wonderful job and running and running so that's why I can say this and they can't how many of you would support an effort I make a disclaimer I am not advancing this effort how many of you would support the effort to increase the income tax and to bring it at least back to the uh position that it was before uh it was cut not many not many and how many of you income tax sales taxes remember were being allowed in Atlantic City that money is supposed to go to fund see it goes though it's supposed to it may not be used it went to the P went to the the lottery money not enough specifically I would love to take another question including the one from my D which I really want take but I cannot time no no no no what I was saying is my point was to say I really wanted to take to take one more question but I really don't have the time so I want to thank all of the panelists uh mayor Romano Senator Gil mayor Torres and Professor Thompson I found it uh particularly interesting that um from the perspectives of the difference between the way academics approach politics and the way practitioners approach politics there were sort of interesting divides there uh but these discussions illustrate the importance of how we Define these Concepts and Senator Gil actually um alluded to that when we talk about inequality what do we mean what do I mean by inequality what did Professor Thompson mean by inequality what did the the uh the mayor the mayor Tores mayor romano and Senator Gil mean by inequality uh what do we mean by Community these are very important Concepts and we need to uh so to take those things into account but regard regardless of how one approaches these issues uh it's important that it's well it's it illustrates how important these issues are um and it helps add to our broader understanding so I hope that you enjoyed the discussions um I know that I did and on behalf of William Patterson University I thank you for your [Applause] participation

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