A Better Approach to Immigration

by: Hopeful

Tue Apr 10, 2007 at 11:03:09 AM EDT

Hightstown Mayor Robert Patten, who hails from the core German-Irish stock in this heavily Democratic town, sees things differently. The town square, once peppered with empty storefronts, is brimming with new Latin American restaurants and remittance centers. Last year, the town closed the streets for an Ecuadorian festival that brought together hundreds of residents

"Most of us know this town would have a heck of a time trying to run itself these days without the immigrants," said Patten, a Republican. "They're working at the grocery stores, the fast-food places, they're opening businesses and keeping this town alive and young. We're just being practical by telling them, 'Look, we want you in our community, and we want you to feel like you belong.' "

It's an Income Tax Problem, Dummy - School Budget Defeat

by: pt

Sat Apr 29, 2006 at 02:35:44 PM EDT

At the Federal level this leads to dangerous borrowing and spending - spending mostly on poorly executed foreign policy blunders - leaving our childred sadly left behind as funding is gone.....at the State level "wack-a-mole" shifting from Income tax to regressive property taxes.... How about a return to the fiscal responsibility of taxing and spending. Investing in the our future of our nation by valuing our childrens education.

Patrick Thompson
Hightstown, NJ

Windsor Hights Herald, Friday 4/31, 2006
Thompson pledge: I won't cut anything.

  A joint committee of East Windsor and Hightstown council members along with local school board members will hold the first of two public meetings May 9 to discuss the recently defeated regional schools budget.
  East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov, chairing the committee along with Hightstown Mayor Bob Patten and Board of Education President Alice Weisman, said the meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at Hightstown High School.
  Ms. Mironov said a second public session is likely to be held May 18.
  That would be a day before the municipalities must submit a final budget to the Mercer County Board of Taxation and superintendent of education. The school board can appeal the municipalities' decision within 10 business days of its submission to the county superintendent.
  Last year, the municipalities cut $1 million after voters gave the budget a thumbs down. The local governments have the authority to cut, add to or leave the budget unchanged.
  One Hightstown official says he already has made his choice – and won't consider any cuts.
  "I'm putting a level of trust in the superintendent. That's his job," Borough Councilman Patrick Thompson wrote in a letter to the Herald. "My job is not to micromanage what Mr. (Ron) Bolandi does. But I will be holding him accountable for his results."
  But both mayors promised to take a thorough look at the defeated proposal.
  "I consider the vote, I consider all the input I receive verbally at any public meetings that are held, and the comments of other officials," Mayor Mironov said.
  Ms. Mironov added that it's very challenging to become generally conversant with the budget in such a short period of time.
  "We also get a 2-foot-high stack of documents relating to the budget, and there's not a lot of time for review," she said.
  Mayor Patten, a retired teacher, agreed on the difficulty created by the time constraints but said it's important to examine many line items and establish a position on the budget.
  "We try to do our homework and look into all the information that went into planning the budget," he said.
  Mayor Patten said two public meetings worked well a year ago, and he hopes residents feel well-represented at open forums on this year's $52.8 million local tax levy — the portion of the $79.2 million budget that can be changed.
  "We want to hear from the public, the administration, the board, as many sources as possible," Mayor Patten said.
  Mr. Bolandi, the man most responsible for the document, figures to be prominent in the sessions even though he has no power to change the numbers.
  "My role in all this is just advisory in nature," he explained. "They'll take a good look at everything and I'll be able to explain some of the items.
  "My job basically is to tell them that if you cut here, this will be the impact; if you cut there, that will be what happens. There really isn't much else for me to do."
  But he is doing something about his discontent over the state formula for funding school budgets. He's hosting an open forum at the high school on May 15 with state Sen. Ellen Karcher (D-Monmouth and Mercer), Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck (R-12th) and Assemblyman Michael Panter (D-12th).
  "This is a state aid problem," Mr. Bolandi said in explaining the reason for the budget failure.
  The superintendent has constantly criticized Trenton because it has forced the district to spend $10 million on new programs over the last five years without increasing state aid.
  "Nobody would be screaming about anything if we had the $10 million," he said. "If you split it in half, there would be no tax increase.
  "Five million dollars would go back to the voters, and the other $5 million would give us everything we want, including class sizes and the programs we want in the high school and middle school and many other things."
  Mr. Thompson, in a letter to the editor received after the Herald's editorial page deadline this week, placed the blame on both the state and local levels.
  "In addition to the regressive system of taxation that has created this problem, we have failed to adequately leverage our economics of scale as municipal governments, resulting in cumbersome duplications of bureaucracies across the state," he wrote.
  "Will another $20 or $30 or $50 per residential taxpayer ... make a true difference to any one of us? I believe not, and I believe those dollars directed toward educating our children is the overwhelming priority."
  Passage of the budget would have meant a 24-cent increase in the tax rate in East Windsor and a 15-cent increase in Hightstown.
  That would have translated in East Windsor to an increase of $307 in the school tax bill of homeowners assessed at the township average of $130,000.
  A homeowner in the borough would have absorbed an increase of $179 on an average assessment of $120,000.