Joe Cutter of NJ101.5 Reporting

A proponent of consolidating some of Jersey’s 566 Municipalities says the strong support for consolidation in a recent poll should be carried forward, with ordinary people involved in the consolidation dialogue.

Gina Genovese heads “courage to connect”. She says as a former mayor of a small Morris County town, she is familiar with struggling to provide citizen services, and banding together with other small entities would increase local clout. Genovese says once a Jersey town reaches the 50-thousand population mark, they are on the map as far as Washington is concerned. She says, “we need to get up to 50-thousand, so that we can get some Federal dollars back into the State to help New Jersey.”

Genovese says the people need to be educated about such things as home rule and the duplication of services from town to town.

Read the story on NJ1015.com

New Jersey is losing millions of dollars each year due to our small municipalities.   The federal government has grant money that can be used to revitalize neighborhoods,  spur economic development or  improve local facilities and services.   But these Federal Community Development Program grants require local populations of at least 50,000.   Instead of complaining that we don’t get our fair share of federal dollars, let’s connect our communities so that we reach this eligibility mark by the 2020 census.  We have 10 years to make this a reality.

Read the April 13, 2010 article on NJ.com about this issue.

This article originally appeared in the Burlington County Times

CINNAMINSON – Joe Davis lives in Cinnaminson. Some members of his family live in Palmyra. To visit them, Davis drives two miles but passes through three police jurisdictions.

This must be New Jersey.

Davis, who works with the state’s Bureau of Recycling as a tonnage grants administrator, was one of the passionate organizers of a meeting at the Cinnaminson Library on Wednesday night introducing Courage to Connect NJ to interested local residents. Continue reading →

Fox 29 in Philadelphia covered our public forum at the Cinnaminson Library on April 21, 2010.

This letter to the editor originally ran April 8, 2010 in The Star-Ledger

Dear Editor,

In regards to your April 6 editorial “Towns Must Explore Merging,” the only real, long-term tax stabilization occurs when five to 10 towns combine under one administration – one police chief, one administrator, etc.

For too long, we have left restructuring in the hands of elected officials. It is time for the taxpayers who foot the bill to demand change. Existing legislation already supports this action.

New Jerseyans need to be informed about their power to connect our communities. My non-partisan group, Courage To Connect NJ, is building a grassroots movement that will help the people make a new, affordable structure a reality in New Jersey. There is no other option.

Gina Genovese
Executive Director, Courage to Connect NJ, Long Hill Township

The need for municipal consolidation has been studied as a possible solution for more than 40 years.  The Municipal Consolidation Act was passed in 1978 and stated “that it is in the public interest to encourage contiguous municipalities to consider consolidation as a means of insuring more rational control of growth and development, more efficient provision of local services and more effective public administration.” Continue reading →