Stockholm, Secaucus and...Teaneck?

A medium-sized town in Northern New Jersey offers its residents top notch public facilities and social services to rival those of a Scandinavian welfare state without a single municipal tax hike in the last eight years. What's wrong with this picture? Nothing at all! Would that we could enjoy all those benefits without reaching any deeper into our pockets!

Unfortunately, the town in question is Secaucus and not Teaneck. And yet, an article in today's Record compares Secaucus' generous childcare programs to those of, of all places, Teaneck.

Secaucus isn't the only town where the local government has found ways to provide affordable child-care options.

Teaneck's Recreation Department has had a long-standing preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds that costs about $225 a month, or nearly a quarter the cost of some private preschools.

This year there are already 20 children on the waiting list, and the preschool has expanded every session to a full day to meet the increasingly demanding schedule of parents, said Recreation Director Glenna Crockett.

Secaucus' extraordinary ability to cater to its 16,000 residents without raising taxes on them is the consequence of a $1.6 million windfall from a hotel occupancy tax and a massive ratables base from its many office buildings, industrial parks, and retail developments. Teaneck has the hotel occupancy tax, but not much else to alleviate the growing burden on its homeowners.

Should Teaneck be providing subsidized preschool programs that can necessarily serve only a tiny proportion of the population while the tax burden soars? Assuming this benefit costs something, it is hard to argue that this constitutes a good use of Teaneck's limited resources, no matter how wonderful the program may be for the lucky few who are admitted. As the Swedes have already found out, you cannot have it all.

Sound familiar?

There are eerie parallels between a brewing controversy in Fair Lawn and Teaneck's own wrangling over the future of the old soap factory property behind Herrick Park. From the circumstances (a proposal for dense residential development on a polluted former industrial site), to the arguments in opposition (increased traffic and the potential strain on local services), all the way down to the planned sale price per condo unit ($450,000 to $650,000), the two Bergen County communities appear to be dealing with the same thing at the same time in the same way.

Coincidence? I think not. At the tail end of a prolonged housing boom, it's not surprising that developers are rushing to cash in before it's too late (though it may already be too late). With all the activity of the last few years, little is left but the least promising and most undesirable plots. Couple those circumstances with overcrowding and the heightened sensitivity to taxation issues in most New Jersey municipalities, and you have a recipe for acrimony.

In a posting on this site, Alan Sohn has argued that many of the problems that lead developers and residents to clash in Teaneck can be traced to the Master Plan, now 5 1/2 years old and showing its age. While this argument is persuasive, even its proponents must admit it does not go far enough. Even a revamped Master Plan will fall short of resolving the underlying issues that Teaneck (and other nearby towns that are overwhelmingly residential) confront as they attempt to preserve a quality of life that has become very expensive to maintain. No document can alter the many fateful decisions already taken in prior years that have placed Teaneck and other suburbs into the difficult situation they are now in. Creativity and resourcefulness in development are but one piece of the puzzle. At this point, there is no palatable way to develop our way out of the mess we are in.

The power of posting

A local Internet controversy has spilled over into real life litigation, as a familiar cast of characters prepares to engage in a courtroom battle over a series of accusatory postings on NJ.com's Bogota forum. Today's Record reports that headline hogging Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan has filed a defamation of character suit against Bill Brennan, well-known to Teaneck residents as the former TFD firefighter who won a seven figure settlement against the town. Brennan is also famous for forcing out former Teaneck Councilman Mike Gallucci after jousting with him in Internet forums.

Whether this formidable gadfly costs another local elected official his position or whether Lonegan's legal action silences him, it is fascinating to behold how the Internet has reshaped the political landscape. Sure, this development was entirely predictable. Given the way the Internet has grown in its influence on the national political process, it was only a matter of time before this powerful medium made its influence felt in local public affairs. Still, the political scene in our area proved a tougher nut to crack, and the breakthrough was longer in coming. Traditionally an insiders' game played by old timers, the political scene in our area has not been characterized by transparency, openness to new viewpoints, or lively public debate.

It is my hope that the observations, discussions, and debates presented on this and other websites dedicated to local issues will make a positive contribution to the community conversation. While the bitter legal wrangling between Lonegan and Brennan provides a sobering reminder of the need to publish our thoughts responsibly, it also highlights the Internet's empowerment of the citizenry by giving it the ability to air views in an easily accessible public forum. Let's keep the discussion going.

Round one to the neighbors, KO for Council?

With JMCK Holding Corp. crying uncle and heading back to the drawing board with its plan for the corner of DeGraw Avenue and Teaneck Road, residents have proven their ability to flex their muscles and push back development in Teaneck's residential neighborhoods. It is too early to say whether neighborhood pressure will compel Holuba Realty to scale back its plans for a massive residential project near Herrick Park, but it is clear that residents are girding for battle. Given the many misgivings neighbors and officials alike have about Holuba's proposals, it would not be surprising if the rather ambitious project under consideration never came to fruition.

Taken alone, these developments are neither good nor bad for Teaneck, but they do have repercussions for the political scene. The newly elected members of the Township Council all campaigned to some degree on boosting ratables in order to ease the homeowner tax burden. As more and more potential projects are nixed by community opposition, the prospects for fulfilling this cornerstone campaign promise dim and the probability increases that current Council members will be forced to campaign as incumbents with nothing to show for their terms in office. Blaming the voters for blocking development is unlikely to work as an excuse.

This puts the politicians in a difficult position. They need to make a meaningful dent in tax bills (or at least slow the rate of increase considerably) and they have committed themselves to doing so by boosting ratables rather than cutting services. With this course ruled out by the residents, the pressure is growing to find shared services arrangements or other sources of savings to cover up the inability of the Council members to deliver on their main promise. Expect to see a frenzy of activity on this front in the future as the urgency is growing by the day...

Red herring

It is time for proponents of strict rent control in Teaneck to give up the charade. What harm would there be in admitting that they hold their position on purely sentimental grounds, out of desire to benefit the less privileged at the expense of those who appear better off? At least the community could debate whether such a policy is just or unjust. When the Deputy Mayor and other opponents of vacancy de-control purport to have rational reasons for heavy governmental interference in the rental market they make a farce of the process and waste everybody's time.

Consider this ridiculous argument against vacancy decontrol, quoted in this week's Suburbanite. The cover article contains the following snippet from the September 5th Council debate on renewing the rent control ordinance:

[Deputy Mayor Lizette] Parker countered that senior citizens and others on fixed incomes, who seek to remain in the town after selling their homes, might not be able to do so if full de-control were enacted.

"We have a responsibility as a council to protect them," Parker said.

Hang on a second here. The Council should take a legislative action that distorts the market and impacts every renter and apartment owner in Teaneck because there might be some longtime Teaneck residents who want to remain in town, but also want to sell their homes and move into an inexpensive rental?! Just how many of these folks are out there? Are they the ones snapping up newly available apartments at artifically low rents? I doubt it.

But suppose we grant that retirees and others on fixed incomes are truly the intended beneficiaries of government imposed limits on rent increases for newly vacated rental units, as improbable as that may seem. And let us also grant that the interests of this narrow group deserve to be advanced, no matter what the expense to others. Wouldn't we do this demographic a greater service by seeing to it that older residents would not be forced to sell their homes in the first place? With mortgages long since paid off on homes that have appreciated very significantly, the main reason members of this group would be looking for cheap rentals is the heavy property tax burden. As that burden could be greatly alleviated if the proper incentives were in place for owners to improve the housing stock, it seems clear that rent controls are part of the problem, and not part of the solution. It is also clear that the appeal to such a patently absurd argument against full vacancy decontrol is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. The Deputy Mayor and others in her camp must know full well that the emperor has no clothes. Those who are opposed to inefficient rent controls certainly do.

So who, exactly, are they fooling?

Double your pension, double your fun

With reform in the air in Trenton, one of the many unsavory New Jersey arrangements getting a closer look is the practice of "double dipping." Many state, county, and local officials, both elected and appointed, have the good fortune to hold a number of paid positions, each of which carries a full complement of pension benefits (alongside a generous helping of potential conflicts of interest and appearances of impropriety). While many states ban the practice, Bloomberg reports that New Jersey ranks first in the number of public servants drawing incomes or pension benefits from multiple positions. Past attempts to do away with this in New Jersey have failed, perhaps because 19 out of 120 members of the current Legislature hold multiple public offices themselves, including our own State Assemblywoman and County Freeholder Valerie Vainieri Huttle (Job 1/Job 2).

While there may be nothing inherently wrong with one person filling more than one job and receiving remuneration for it, the system easily lends itself to abuses. Perhaps equally important to the politicians now seeking to make an issue of the practice is that it angers taxpayers, who are already faltering under the burden of the state's existing pension problems. Each time voters are reminded of the fact that Monmouth County lawyer Mark T. Apostolou played the system well enough to pull in over $274,000 in salary for 10 judgeships in 2004 (and ensure himself of more than $80,000 per annum in retirement income), the outcry gets a little bit louder.

However, as certain Trenton lawmakers prepare for the latest attempt to outlaw this practice, a simpler solution seems to be staring them in the face. Just yesterday, the Record reported on an initiative to pool school district bank accounts in order to win better terms from banking institutions (Teaneck's Board of Education is among the participants in this new program). Is there any reason that municipalities do not collaborate on hiring too? Everyone but Mark Apostolou would be better off if the 10 employers who each furnished salary and pension benefits to him got together and advertised a single job at a lower rate. The much ballyhooed shared services model might be worthy of consideration here too.

Visible hand

Today's Bergen Record reports that the Teaneck Township Council is expected to reinstate limits on how much landlords may increase rents when apartments turn over. This return to greater governmental interference in the local housing market should come as no surprise. While a number of members of the public got up to express their views on the issue at Tuesday's Council meeting, it was not the familiar arguments they trotted out that swayed the Council to change course. The outcome of the latest debate on the lingering issue of rent control was determined at the polls back in May, despite some unfounded speculation by the Suburbanite that Michael Kevie Feit would renege on his campaign promise to uphold restrictions on landlords' ability to charge market rates for their properties.

Despite the fact that emotions run high when full vacancy decontrol comes up for discussion, statistics cited in the Record article appear to render the issue moot. After all, without binding restrictions over the past year, "according to township officials, the average rent increase on vacant apartments over the past year was just under 9 percent." Imposing a 10 percent limit on rent increases for newly vacated apartments, it might be argued, seems unlikely to make a big difference, as the market is not, for the most part, bearing increases of that magnitude.

However, the changing dynamics of the housing market suggest that this may not remain the case. As the New York Times recently reported, rents are now rising significantly nationwide after an extended period of muted gains. As price controls are reinstated in town, Teaneck landlords may actually sustain a financial loss, even as they failed to benefit from the one year reprieve they were handed by the previous Council.

What recourse do the landlords have? Probably none. The makeup of the current Council is such that tenants have regained the upper hand for the time being. Who will bear the brunt of this? Every non-renter who would benefit if landlords were properly incentivized to invest in their properties and upgrade them. Many declare themselves more than willing to pay that price in order to preserve the current demographic makeup of the town. But are the economic and aesthetic costs along with somewhat creepy social engineering really necessary to achieve that goal?

The other guy

You would never know it from cruising around town or even from reading the papers, but the Congressional seat representing New Jersey's District 9 (which includes Teaneck and 37 other municipalities across three counties) is actually being contested. Five-term Democratic Congressman Steve Rothman is facing an election challenge from Vince Micco, a veteran of the current campaign in Iraq who resides in Rutherford.

While it is never easy running for office against an established incumbent, Micco's slim chances of prevailing are not helped by the fact that a Republican has not represented the Ninth District since Harold C. Hollenbeck was unseated by the infamous Robert Torricelli in 1982. Rep. Rothman has kept a firm grip on his job since replacing Torricelli when he moved to the Senate. He has garnered at least 67.5% of the vote in each of the last three elections, handily defeating all challengers.

Despite the fact that the district seems to embrace Rothman's left of center ideology and voting record, Micco leaves no doubt that he falls at the polar opposite end of the political spectrum. While Rothman earns low grades from the anti-immigration lobby, anti-abortion groups, and taxpayer groups while winning plaudits from environmental activists, the National Education Association, and arts organizations, Micco has staked out positions that are likely to result in the opposite evaluations. Credit to him for upholding his convictions, but his prospects for victory are not likely to be improved through any public consideration of the issues.

The consequence of this electoral mismatch is that the Ninth District will fail to place Congressman Rothman's record under any real scrutiny and Rothman will be returned to office once again in a laugher. It may be that Congressman Rothman's positions accurately represent the will of his constituents and that his record of achievements for the district is a good one. But the voters are not well served when they do not have a chance to verify it. Here's hoping that a credible candidate will emerge at some point and prevent complacency from setting in. Democracy functions best with vigorous debate and healthy competition.