Middletown Calls On Christie, Legislature To Allow Affordable Housing Funds To Assist Sandy Impacted Homeowners

Citing the shortage of federal and state funds available to assist Superstorm Sandy impacted homeowners in rebuilding their homes, the Middletown Township Committtee this week joined Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik and Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon in calling on the state legislature and Governor Chris Christie to put the more than $100 million in Affordable Housing Funds that are sitting dormant to work.

With a unanimous 5-0 vote, the committee passed a resolution on Monday, April 21, calling for legislation that would reinstate Regional Contribution Agreements (RCAs) “for the limited purpose of getting victims of Superstorm Sandy back in their homes during this time of need.”

RCAs were created in the original 1985 Fair Housing Act whereby towns with funds raised from developer fees or through bonding could transfer up to half of those funds to another community for the purpose of building affordable housing as required by the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mt. Laurel decision.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

O’Scanlon Calls On Towns To File For Arbitration Before April 1

With one business day to go prior to the expiration of the Interest Arbitration Award Cap that has saved New Jersey property tax payers millions of dollars over the last 3 years, and with no sign that Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto is going to call the General Assembly back into session to vote on concurring with Governor Chris Chrisite’s conditional veto of legislation to extend the cap, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, the Republican Assembly Budget Officer, is calling on every New Jersey municipality with an expired police or firefighters contract to file for arbitration on Monday so their new contract will fall within the 2% parameter of the existing cap.

“It is quite frankly heart breaking to me that the leadership of my house, all of who are my friends, are leading New Jersey property tax payers off a cliff,” O’Scanlon said, “I fully expected to hear by the end of the day today that we would be brought back to Trenton on Monday to vote to affirm the Governor’s conditional veto of the arbitration award cap legislation which was overwhelmingly passed on a bipartisan measure by the apparently much more responsible New Jersey State Senate.

“Since the clock is counting down to the expiration of the previous law and the Assembly leadership seems to care more about pandering to special interest than the property tax payers of New Jersey I now feel compelled to take action assuming we’ll face the worst case scenario. In order to most comprehensively guard themselves against potential frivolous, but costly none the less, litigation any municipality that has an expired contract, but that has not yet filed for arbitration, should do so immediately – before the April 1 expiration of the previous law.

“It is extremely unfortunate that the Assembly Democrat leadership would act to threaten the welfare of New Jersey property tax payers, but that is apparently the reality.”

Pass this post on to your municipal officials.

• Tweet

Still Hope For Property Tax Cap

The ball is in the Assembly’s court

Both the State Senate and General Assembly passed the bill that would blow a hole in municipal budgets for the next four years, the “extension” of the 2% Interest Arbitration Cap for police and firefighters base salaries that did not really cap those salaries.  Had the bill become law, there would have been a massive cut in municipal services throughout New Jersey or property taxes would have started rising again at levels we experienced during the Corzine/Codey/McGreevey administrations.

But Governor Chris Christie conditionally vetoed the bill and the Senate quickly concurred with the changes he made to the bill which kept the cap intact through December 2017 by a vote of 33-1.   Christie’s office announced the conditional veto and the Senate’s concurrence in the same press release.

One has to wonder why the Senate went through the exercise of passing the “bad bill” in the first place, by a vote of 28-7, only to abandon the changes it made to the existing Interest Arbitration Cap and, for the most part, extend the existing law for another four years, so quickly.   Without the Senate’s concurrence to Christie’s conditional veto, the cap on arbitration awards would expire on April 1st.  Either the “bad bill” or the expiration of the cap would have been a victory for the Trenton Democrats benefactors in the police and firefighters unions.

The unions may still have their victory.  Before the Assembly could take a vote on concurring with Christie’s conditional veto, Speaker Vincent Prieto abruptly adjourned the session.   No Assembly session has been scheduled, yet, to take up the concurrence prior to April 1.

Below is a video of Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon’s floor speak before the chamber voted on the “bad bill.”   As usual, O’Scanlon makes is case and fights for New Jersey taxpayers very well.

h

• Tweet

Property taxes: Christie won’t sign Democrat bill to extend key law, Republican lawmaker says

Property taxes: Christie won’t sign Democrat bill to extend key law, Republican lawmaker says (via NJ.com)

TRENTON — A fight over renewing a law crucial to holding back an increase in property taxes is nowhere near resolved, a Republican lawmaker who has led the fight for retaining it said today. Although the Democrat-led Legislature last week began advancing…

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Red Light Cameras Shuttered In Brick

O’Scanlon and Ducey Celebrate “Good Riddance” To Red Light Ripoffs

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Brick Mayor John Ducey celebrated the end of the Township’s red light camera program  yesterday by posing for one last image for American Traffic Solutions’ computers in Arizona to process.

Fulfilling a campaign promise made during his race for mayor last fall, on February 6 Ducey announced the results of his study of Brick’s RLC results showing that the cameras actually increased traffic accidents over the three year program and refused to renew the contract of ATS, the Arizona company that administered the program and kept roughly half of the fine monies collected.  The contract expired at midnight today.

O’Scanlon, New Jersey’s leading critic of the RLC program praised Ducey for protecting Brick’s motorists from the dangerous rippoffs and called on the leaders of the twenty-four New Jersey municipalities that still have the cameras to do the same thing: “One down, 24 to go!” O’Scanlon declared.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Brick Township Ends Its Red Light Camera Program

Brick Mayor John Ducey

Citing accident statistics reporting an increase in accidents at the three red light camera intersections in his Township, Brick Mayor John Ducey announced this afternoon that he is not renewing American Traffic Solutions’s contract.

Brick’s red light camera program terminates effective February 18, 2014 and equipment is to be removed  by February 24.

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, New Jersey’s most prominent opponent of the red light camera program was on hand to congratulate Ducey, the residents of Brick, and New Jersey motorists who drive in Brick.

“When I was running for Mayor, one of the most frequent sources of frustrations of the people I spoke to was the red light cameras.  I promised to review our red light camera program and remove them if that review didn’t convince me that they were making our roads safer,” said Mayor Ducey.  “I have kept that promise.  After conducting that review, I am not convinced that the benefit is safety and not revenue. At the end of the day, the statistics I was shown did not convince me that these cameras are making intersections safer.  The strongest argument for keeping the lights is for the revenue they generate and I feel strongly that government should not be balancing budgets through punitive measures,” As a result I am not renewing the red light camera contract which is effectively ending red light cameras in Brick Township.”

Ducey noted an increase in accidents at each of the three Brick intersections that have RCLs between 2012 and 2013, the 2013 data is not completely reported yet.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

O’Scanlon: Red Light Camera Corruption Warrants Investigations By Fishman, Wisniewski

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said today that he is asking U.S Attorney Paul Fishman to open criminal investigations into the municipal clients of Redflex Traffic Systems, an Arizona based red light camera company, due to legal claims by a former executive that the company routinely bribed municipal officials in 13 states, including New Jersey, in order to obtain the lucrative contracts to operate camera systems that issue summonses for red light infractions.

Additionally, O’Scanlon is writing to Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski to ask that the committee open an investigation into New Jersey’s red light camera program in light of the recent bribery allegations and scientific proof commissioned by O’Scanlon that red light cameras are a detriment to public safety that are rigged to cheat motorists.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Meanest red-light cameras in N.J. pumped out thousands of citations in 2013

Meanest red-light cameras in N.J. pumped out thousands of citations in 2013 (via NJ.com)

We have found the meanest red light in New Jersey. It was two years ago when Alice Henry had her first encounter with it and she still tries to avoid the intersection that made her $85 poorer. “I either try to go a different route, or I go and stop…

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Rally For Christie, 13th District and Monmouth County Republicans on Saturday

Chris Christie at Bachstadt’s Tavern, November 1, 2009

Governor Chris Christie will be returning to Bachstadt’s Tavern in North Middletown on Saturday afternoon, November 2, as his bi-partisan supporters rally to get out the vote for a historic victory.

Bachstadt’s, the traditional venue of Senator Joe Kyrillos’s and his 13th District running mates pre-election rallies, was adopted by Christie for good luck in his 2009 race against Jon Corzine.  It was at the Bachstadt’s rally in 2009 that Kyrillos announced that the troubled Corzine campaign was making robo calls for Independent gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett, in an unsuccessful effort to suppress Christie’s voter turnout.  MMM confirmed that the calls were paid for by Democrats and was the first to break that story which became national news.

In addition to Christie, 13th District Legislators Kyrillos and Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon, and Monmouth County candidates, Sheriff Shaun Golden and Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso will be present to thank and rally their supporters.

The event is from 1PM-4PM and includes all you can eat and drink for FREE!  Voluntary donations to any the 13th District or Monmouth County candidates will be accepted.

Bachstadt’s is located at 8 Bray Ave, North Middletown, NJ.

In addition to Bachstadt’s on Saturday, Christie will visit Monmouth County Republican Headquarters, 2 Monmouth Ave, Freehold, on Monday morning November 4 at 11:45 am.

Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno will be meeting voters and volunteers on Friday morning, 10:45 at the Middletown Victory Center, 1715 Rt 35 North, Middletown and at the Blue Swan Diner, 2116 Route 35 South, Oakhurst at 11:45 am..  On Tuesday, Guadagno will stop on Monmouth Republican Headquarters at 2:30 PM.

• Tweet