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.

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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.

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Sweeney Rejects Using COAH Funds For Sandy Rebuilding

Sweeney: RCAs “put poor white folk and poor black folk out of town”

Hornik: “No one in Trenton can honestly say that COAH is working”

Senate President Sweeney rejected out of hand an idea brought forth by Marlboro Mayor Jonathon Hornik this week that could potentially release $184 million in dormant funds for the benefit of Superstrom Sandy victims.

Hornik called for the reinstatement of Regional Contribution Agreements (RCA), in order to unlock $184 million in COAH funds to help residents impacted by Superstorm Sandy rebuild their homes in an OpEd piece published on MMM and PolitickerNJ.

RCAs were a practice that was in place to build affordable housing in New Jersey from 1985 through 2008 under the Fair Housing Act, whereby communities that had raised affordable housing funds through development could transfer those funds, and their obligation to build affordable housing within their own community, to other communities with an immediate need.  The legislature and Governor Corzine outlawed RCAs in 2008.

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon issued a statement commending Hornik  and said,”When the Democrat leadership in Trenton killed the RCA program it was bad, short sighted policy that many of us knew would come back to bite us. Its flaws are now magnified by the plight of Sandy victims as many towns struggle with the economic burdening of rebuilding.”

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O’Scanlon: Pezzullo is best choice of U.S. Senate

Rich Pezzullo and Declan O’Scanlon

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, this morning endorsed Freehold businessman for the GOP nomination to take on Senator Cory Booker this fall.

“Rich Pezzullo has a unique combination of skills that are rare in the Senate,” Assemblyman O’Scanlon said, “He has firsthand knowledge of the effects of over-regulation on different types of businesses,  the confidence and bearing from 20 years as an Army officer and a command of the issues that is desperately needed in Washington. We need to send Rich Pezzullo to the Senate where the fight for fiscal restraint, accountability and much needed regulatory relief for New Jersey calls for his energy, vision and commitment.”

O’Scanlon noted that Pezzullo’s experience as an information technology business owner gave him a unique perspective on the needs of business owners. “Rich Pezzullo doesn’t need a lobbyist to give him his talking points about Federal intrusion into private life.  He works at the front lines of consumer businesses, medical practices and charities and sees firsthand the damage being done to our economy and our society by excess government.”

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O’Scanlon: Reinstate Regional Contribution Agreements To Help Sandy Victims

Assemblyman urges Bayshore residents to ask Senate President Sweeney join the bi-partisan effort

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, issued a statement today welcoming Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik’s support of Regional Contribution Agreements (RCA) for use in getting Sandy victims back into their homes, and called upon residents of his Bayshore district to question Senate President Sweeney the use of Affordable Housing Funds when Sweeney visits the district for his Town Hall meeting in Keansburg on Thursday afternoon.

“Recently, Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik suggested that RCAs could be used by towns to help their neighbors continue to rebuild in the devastating wake of Sandy,” O’Scanlon said, “My Republican colleagues and I have been calling for the use of RCAs for years and I am excited to hear that Mayor Hornik is on board. When the Democrat leadership in Trenton killed the RCA program it was bad, short sighted policy that many of us knew would come back to bite us. Its flaws are now magnified by the plight of Sandy victims as many towns struggle with the economic burdening of rebuilding.

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O’Scanlon: Time to make Interest Arbitration Law permanent

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Property tax battle: Deadline looms on expiration of key law

Property tax battle: Deadline looms on expiration of key law (via NJ.com)

TRENTON — Mayors say a group with an obscure and achingly bureaucratic name has been the most important tool in slowing the growth of New Jersey’s property taxes, the highest in the nation. For the last three years, arbitrators who decide contract…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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