The residents of Essex County’s Montclair had the chance to lead the charge, Save Jerseyans, and fight back against the tsunami of strangling taxes in New Jersey.
But unfortunately they failed — miserably.
Silly me! I was intrigued, even hopeful after reading a New York Times article describing how this liberal North Jersey town had found a candidate who campaigned on cutting government waste and freezing taxes.
Karen Turner was getting traction running on a platform of fiscal responsibility.
Had a North Jersey town with two Whole Foods, the state’s first licensed medical marijuna clinic and an electorate that voted 83% for Obama in 2008 really entertained launching a common sense revolt? Montclair, the left of left liberal towns, might be in the avangard of a new pro-taxpayer trend in the Garden State? Were the citizens of Montclair’s idealism hitting the brick wall of expensive realism?
Sadly no.
Even though Montclair’s debt and taxes have more than doubled in the last 10 years, Turner finished second in a three-way municipal race with just 31% of the vote.
What can we glean from this? Head in the sand denial? French socialism?
Or is it an example of what we see in many small Jersey towns, the classic catch-22. The fear that if you don’t pay the tax bill and keep spending to maintain the “quality” of your town’s biggest investments, then municipal home values will crash?
Maybe. So for now, Montclair’s electorate embraced the status quo over reining in out-of-control spending, at least for this election cycle. On the bright side, second is better then third.
