Mayors of NJ townships gather to discuss tax exemptions and calculations in summit.
Thousands of local officials will converge on Atlantic City for the League of Municipalities convention Tuesday with a new sense of urgency: They must figure out how to run their towns while keeping property tax growth below a 2-percent cap that goes into effect next year.
"We’re looking down the barrel of a howitzer, and the cannon is going to go off January 1," said League Executive Director Bill Dressel.
The convention — the League’s 95th — comes as Republican Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic leaders of the Legislature fight over how towns can meet the cap.
Christie has been pressuring the Legislature to pass his "tool kit" bills, the most important of which would allow towns to opt out of civil service rules and put a cap on arbitration awards. Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said he’ll get to that before the end of the year, but that the governor has not proposed legislation that would push towns to share more services.
Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage said he and other mayors will use the convention to tell lawmakers and members of the Christie administration to stop fighting and get to work on property tax solutions. He said more drastic steps are needed than what’s included in the "tool kit."
"The rhetoric, the chess playing has to stop and there needs to be some bills passed that will get us to meet this two percent cap," he said.
About 20,000 people are expected to attend the four-day event, including elected and appointed officials, lobbyists, vendors and members of the governor’s cabinet. There will be 125 seminars and events.
"It’s management reforms, it’s ethics, it’s affordable housing, it’s economic development, it’s technology, it’s sustainability, budgeting, shared services," said Dressel. "If you go back and look at our agendas over the past 15 or 20 years, you will see the same basic programs... These aren’t new. I think there’s a new focus and a light being shined on them by the Christie administration."
The governor won’t be there, but he will send Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno in his place to give a speech Thursday. Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) will have a panel discussion with Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Union) and Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris).
The event isn’t all business. With a long list of parties by special interests and politicians each year, it’s taken on a reputation as a raucous, booze-fueled bash. In his memoir, former Gov. James E. McGreevey compared it to a "huge frat party."
It’s also known for clandestine meetings in hotel suites where political deals are cut, and for undercover FBI agents snagging corrupt officials by handing them briefcases full of cash, all captured on hidden camera.
"This is really the Super Bowl of pay-to-play, because everyone gets together in the same place," said Sierra Club New Jersey Director Jeff Tittel, who’s been going to League conventions since the 1970s.
But Dressel chafes at the reputation. "I think it’s unfair, quite frankly, that to some that becomes identified with the League," he said. "What we do from nine to five is provide quality programming."
Courtesy of Matt Friedman of NJ.COM
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