FromNJ.com

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A program that allows children in failing public schools to transfer to better ones that are willing to take them is drawing support from Gov.-elect Chris Christie, who wants to see it expanded.

We hope he can make that happen so it can benefit more students now trapped in inferior schools.

Under the Interdistrict School Choice Program, students who are accepted at schools outside their home districts can attend tuition-free. Tax dollars follow them to the new school. Students also receive reimbursement for transportation.

But it’s a small program, in part because it works only when host districts have extra space. The limited number of school districts that have signed on to the program suggests it is not a practical alternative for most students stuck in poorly performing schools.

The program, which started in 2000 as a five-year-pilot project, has just 15 participating districts serving fewer than 1,000 students. It allows one pilot district in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties.

The plan has been touted as a success in Hunterdon and Atlantic counties. But in several of the state’s most populous counties, such as Essex and Middlesex, no districts are participating, typically because they have no room. West Orange, for example, has built a new middle school and added to its high school in recent years. And Montclair has broken ground on a new and bigger elementary school, to keep up with its own growing enrollments.

So the interdistrict choice program will likely always be small. But Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex) has co-sponsored legislation that seeks to remove some of the legislative barriers so the program can grow somewhat. The bills pending in the Legislature would expand the program beyond its 15 approved districts to all counties. It would also remove the one school district per county cap on those participating. Those are helpful steps.

Meanwhile, let’s remember that improving public schools, where most children attend classes, remains the far more important task.

From Press of Atlantic City

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SOMERS POINT – After more than a quarter-century in business, Pearl Lin knows she will eventually lose her restaurant to make way for the $400 million Somers Point-Ocean City causeway project, one of the most expensive and ambitious transportation projects in New Jersey.

Lin, 62, said she is willing to make way. As long she is paid what she believes is a fair price.

She says the state has offered her $1.6 million, a figure she says is woefully inadequate.

“It’s the perfect location,” said Lin, co-owner and namesake of the Chinese restaurant. “Everybody drives past here from Ocean City … and we have a beautiful view of the water across the street.”

The path that takes motorists past Lin’s restaurant is called the Route 52 causeway, a nearly three-mile stretch that starts at Route 9 in Somers Point and ends in Ocean City. The causeway project was built in 1933 and includes four bridges, two of them drawbridges. The state Department of Transportation is rebuilding the causeway, replacing the two drawbridges with elevated, fixed spans, building a new Ocean City Welcome Center and replacing the Somers Point traffic circle with lights. The fixed spans will reach over Ship Channel and Beach Thorofare. The new causeway will have 12-foot lanes and 8-foot shoulders. A concrete barrier will separate northbound and southbound traffic.

But to accomplish all those improvements, the state must take over a handful of privately owned properties.

The DOT seized the Tackle Direct in Ocean City in January and the Pearl Restaurant in Somers Point in April, at least on paper.

Since then, the state and the building owners have been negotiating their purchase prices.

“It’s not fair. It’s not fair,” Lin said tearfully. “I was willing to work with them. I went to all the meetings. But at the last minute, they tell me the plans can’t change and that they can just take my property if I don’t go agree to it. I can see something like this happening in China, but America? Not here.”

DOT spokesman Timothy Greeley said in an e-mail that he could not comment on the agency’s use of eminent domain since the negotiations were ongoing and, in the case of Lin, contentious.

Lin emigrated from China to the United States. In 1983, she and her husband, Steve, opened the Pearl Restaurant on the traffic circle.

The state plans to replace this busy roundabout with traffic lights as part of the causeway project.

The state took ownership of the restaurant in April, when Lin started paying rent to the state.

According to the Somers Point tax office, the state is delinquent on its third-quarter taxes of $6,973.23. An official there said the state is responsible for those taxes through the end of 2009. But Ocean City Tax Collector Gary Hink said the state is not obligated to pay local taxes on the properties it acquired.

Along with Tackle Direct, the state seized a nearby Ocean City property at 101 Palen Ave. assessed at $487,500 and owned by Nelson Rutledge.

Tackle Direct owner Thomas Gill declined to comment Thursday, saying he was still negotiating the sale with the state. He moved his 30-employee fishing-tackle business over the bridge to Somers Point.

Lin, who has known about the causeway project since 2003, said she turned down a $4.1 million offer in 2006. She said the DOT reassured her at the time that it would work around her restaurant so she could keep her business. She offered to let the state encroach on her one-acre property, if necessary.

“We could have moved our building back and changed our entrance to the side. We would have gone from having five entrances to our parking lot to two or three, but I was willing to do that,” she said. “But they lied to me. They lied when they said there was a chance. Because there was no chance.”

The state has since offered Lin $1.6 million for her property, assessed in 2009 at $678,000. She rejected the latest offer.

“That’s not even half of what it would cost me to relocate,” said Lin, adding she has done extensive renovations on her restaurant/packaged goods store.

“We’ve tried looking for places to relocate, but there’s nothing that matches what we have here,” she said.

Lin said the state’s offer for her property compared poorly with the state’s offers for Ocean City properties.

The owners of a 3,000-square-foot vacant lot in Ocean City were offered $1.05 million, she said. She said Tackle Direct was offered and turned down $2.1 million.

“They don’t have the good location that we have and they are offered more money? How can that be?” she asked. “I think because I don’t speak good English they think that they can kick me around.”

From NJ.com

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Tom Anzalone is proud about his father’s decision to save his beachfront home in Long Branch. “He may be 92,” Tom said, “but my father made all the major decisions. It’s his house. He has that World War II fighting ethic, fighting for his rights.”

On Tuesday, attorneys for the majority of property owners in the Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace, Seaview Avenue neighborhood in Long Branch signed a final consent order of settlement in their long-standing eminent domain case. As the attorney for homeowner Louis Anzalone, I was one of them.

By William J. Ward, managing partner of Carlin & Ward in Florham Park. The author has practiced eminent domain law for more than 35 years and is the author of the New Jersey Eminent Domain Law Blog.

Peter Wegener represented the other homeowners, and Scott Bullock and the Institute for Justice joined the case on appeal. Together we formed a united front on behalf of the property owners. Still, it was the participation of New Jersey’s Public Advocate Ronald Chen that made the difference, not only in this case but in all the important cases that are redefining the way we view eminent domain in New Jersey.

In the Long Branch matter, mediation went on for months after an August 2008 Appellate Court decision, which reversed in part and sent the case back to the court that ruled against the property owners in June 2006. Monmouth County Assignment Judge Lawrence Lawson wisely placed the mediation process in the hands of Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Cavanagh Jr., who brought negotiations to fruition. On Tuesday evening the Long Branch City Council voted 4-1 to accept the terms of settlement. So the litigation is over.

The agreement dismisses the condemnation complaints, eliminates the use of eminent domain in these same properties, guarantees the property owners’ rights to redevelop their own properties, and gives the property owners the same tax abatements that would be given to any developer. The agreement also stipulates the counsel fees that will be divided among all counsel and paid by the city, which by law are awarded when a condemnation complaint is abandoned. And the city will upgrade streetlights and pave and maintain the roads. The designated developer will adhere to a demolition schedule to take down those homes in the neighborhood that were vacated and boarded up.

Blight is not in the eye of the beholder, contrary to a statement made by Justice Kennedy during the oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Kelo vs. New London. In New Jersey, “blight” is a word that has specific meaning and a public purpose as set forth in the 1947 New Jersey Constitution.

In 1992, the Local Redevelopment Housing Law developed criteria to determine blight that could result in a condemnation of almost any property. And that was where the Public Advocate came in, as a friend of the court in support of the property owner’s position in the 2007 state Supreme Court case, Gallethin Realty vs. Borough of Paulsboro. Blight has to be proved by substantial, credible evidence. The courts insist on more than a cursory review of the properties or a recitation without substantiation of the statutory blight criteria. Thus, there is a trend toward a more restrictive interpretation of the law. But it is apparent that many experts presented by the municipalities do not provide substantial, credible evidence to support a conclusion that an area is in need of redevelopment. That’s what happened in Long Branch, and that’s why the Appellate Division reversed the blight designation in 2008.

But victory has no time to waste, resting on laurels. Gallenthin Realty vs. Borough of Paulsboro reminds us that, while the New Jersey Legislature enlarged the power of eminent domain to include the taking of private property for redevelopment, the judiciary is the final arbiter. The City of Long Branch vs. Anzalone case is a reminder of what remains undone. We gain a piece here and a piece there through case law, but what is required is a comprehensive review of the statutory structure.

The New Jersey Legislature has been considering eminent domain reform for more than four years and has yet to pass substantive changes to the Eminent Domain Act of 1971, the Local Redevelopment Housing Law, and the Relocation Assistance Act and Regulations. A reform bill was voted out of the Sen. Ronald Rice’s Community and Urban Affairs Committee, but has not moved. According to the Institute for Justice, 43 states have passed significant eminent domain reform since the Kelo case in 2005. Not New Jersey.

Without statutory reform, the potential for eminent domain abuse will continue. And New Jersey’s property owners will fight city hall, case by case, for their homes, their farms, relocation for their small businesses, and their right to redevelop their own property.

From The Star Ledger

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Sometimes you can fight city hall, even if it takes a while.

In the case of about 18 Long Branch homeowners, time — and an economic downturn — was on their side.

More than five years ago, the city deemed 36 modest single-family homes “blighted,” and sought to seize the properties under eminent domain. In their place, a private developer would build luxury beachfront condominiums.

With the threat of seizure, half the homeowners struck their own deals with the developer, who paid 40 percent to 50 percent more than their home appraisals, according to Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider.

But 18 holdouts — many were elderly and had lived there for 40 years or more — refused to budge. On Tuesday, Long Branch agreed not to use eminent domain to seize the homes, as part of a settlement mediated by Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Cavanaugh.

Ronald Chen, the state’s public advocate, who signed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the homeowners, credited the settlement to a 2007 ruling by the state Supreme Court in Paulsboro. Owners of undeveloped wetlands fought the borough’s “blighted” designation, and won.

“The city can’t take your property based on the proposition that they can make it more profitable,” Chen said.

Schneider said there was a big difference between the Paulsboro and Long Branch properties, and he doesn’t agree that there’s a new definition of “blight,” but no matter. He won’t fight on, citing the time it would cost to prepare the case, the growing bitterness and acrimony, and “an economy that’s falling apart.”

The economy was only one factor in the settlement, Schneider said, but it certainly helped push the developer toward a compromise.

The 18 sites that were sold to the developer have been vacant for years as the case was litigated — ironically, creating the very blight that was alleged by town officials. Now they’ll be demolished for a scaled-down condo development. “The economy will determine if they’re still luxury, but my guess is they won’t be,” Schneider said.

The recession has left many cities with arrested development — sites where construction was abandoned as the money evaporated. Beachfront property will always be desirable, but in this case, we’re glad Long Branch homeowners got to keep their ocean views.

As states like California, Illinois and New Jersey struggle to make up for steep multi-billion dollar budget deficits while they totter on the brink of insolvency, there is one option for reducing those shortfalls that is making real headway across the Atlantic Ocean.

It all revolves around cutting the public sector. It’s time to try it here.

Ireland is faced with a €20 billion deficit and borrowing €400 million a week just to keep afloat. Colm McCarthy, the chairman of An Bord Snip Nua—a cost-cutting bureau in Ireland—knows the stakes. And he sees no way around cutting public sector pay by some €5.3 billion. Government officials agree. So far, the left-of-center government refuses to rule anything out in the Bord Snip report.

Writes The Sunday Times on July 19th, “Ireland is like a household that has been living beyond its means and now finds itself deep in hock to the bank. Unless we show a willingness to reduce our spending, [international] lending may dry up, forcing us into the arms of the European Central Bank which will have to mount an IMF-style rescue to prevent a euro currency crisis.”

Ireland is not alone. Poland just announced a cut of 12,000 government employees. No silly furloughs or dodgy accounting tricks. A straight reduction in the number of public sector workers. And the government warns that if revenues do not increase, further reductions will be forthcoming. Other nations in Europe are actively considering similar or even deeper cuts.

The basic problems Ireland faces are quite similar to those in California, New York and other states in the U.S.: Public sector workers make far more than their private sector counterpart.

An October 2007 survey from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office showed that the average hourly earnings in the public sector were far greater than in the private sector. Average earnings per hour in the public sector were €26.67 compared with €18.07 per hour in the private sector. Public sector wages are 48% higher.

And how do California, Illinois and others match up?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ recently published study for 2007, in California, which is still trying to climb out of its oppressive $26 billion deficit, average annual income for state employees was $56,777 versus $49,935 for the private sector, a 14 percent gap. In Illinois, a similar story emerges: $53,925 for state workers, and $48,006 for the private sector, an 11 percent split. New Jersey: $57,845 average state salary, $53,590 for private sector workers, at an 8 percent difference. And these differences don’t take into account the excessive fringe benefits enjoyed by public sector workers. The bottom-line is that we pay the public sector more, in some cases far more, than corresponding workers in private business.

Nationally, the story is even worse. Federal workers made on average $64,871 in 2007, with private sector workers making a meager $44,362, so public sector wages in the federal system are 46% higher.

If California, and other spendthrift state governments ever hope to emerge in the black, they must now implement what some may consider draconian fiscal measures. Cutting public sector pay makes the most sense. In California, for example, if workers received a 12.1 percent pay cut, leveling the playing field with the private sector, the state would save $3.1 billion.

Cutting the total workforce down by 10 percent is a real move that saves $5.4 billion annually and many billions more over time. Similar approaches would save taxpayers annually $1.3 billion in Illinois and New Jersey.

The fact is, the Irish are on to something. By facing the reality of their situation head-on and acting in a responsible manner, they are far more likely to weather the financial storm than are the compulsive spenders in the US. It is high time we embrace the pluck of the Irish here.

The author is Chairman of Americans for Limited Government and Liberty Features Syndicated writer