Welcome to the blog for markparadis.com.

For those of you that do not know me - my name is Mark Paradis and I am currently serving my first term as Mayor of Lebanon Borough, NJ. Lebanon is a small Borough in Hunterdon County. I hope that by the use of this blog and my web site, you will have the opportunity to get to know me and I will have the opportunity to share my experiences as Mayor of a small municipality. I can tell you one thing, there is NEVER a dull moment! So sit back, relax and enjoy.

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“Click” the following link for a special birthday message from GODADDY.  Happy 233rd
Birthday to the United States Marine Corps!

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Residents of Lebanon Borough are invited to the last Mayor’s Open House for 2008

Event: Mayor’s Open House
Date: Saturday, November 15, 2008
Time: 11:00a.m - 1:00p.m
Place: 84 Brunswick Avenue, Lebanon, NJ

Please join us this season, as we will be collecting non-perishable food items to be donated to the Flemington Food Pantry on behalf of the residents of Lebanon Borough.

Light refreshments will be served.

The Mayor’s open house was initiated in the Spring of 2007 to promote a positive atmosphere while furthering the accessibility of local government officials. It has also served residents of Lebanon Borough the opportunity to have personal one-on-one attention to their issues and concerns.

For more information, please contact Mark Paradis at 908-236-8464 or at the blog “Inside the Trenches”

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NJ doesn’t have an extra $12M to keep up State Police patrols in rural towns - yet $45M in “distressed cities aid” is given to the city of Newark - and even after Newark is slated to receive $45M in emergency funding - a bold (insensitive) move on the part of Newark’s governing body to increase salaries.

Pay hike sought for 63 Newark employees
City leaders, aides among nonunion staff
Sunday, August 24, 2008
BY KATIE WANG
Star-Ledger Staff

Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s administration is proposing to give a retroactive 3.5 percent salary increase to 63 city employees, including the business administrator, city clerk and other department directors who are not represented by a union.

The proposal, which would give a raise for this year and last year, has the initial backing of the city council. It comes less than a week after the state agreed to supply $45 million in emergency funding to plug the city’s budget and dodge a fiscal crisis.

In exchange for the money, the city agreed to tighter restrictions on its spending, including a freeze on hiring, pay hikes or promotions. Any salary increases must be approved by the state Department of Community Affairs and the state Department of Personnel.

“We are currently looking into this situation and have reached out to Newark for further information,” said Chris Donnelly, a spokesman for the Community Affairs department.

Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose (R-Sussex), who sits on the Assembly Budget Committee and has been critical of Newark’s spending practices, was surprised the raises were being proposed.

“I think it’s very bold of them and a little brazen,” McHose said. “I would think that the mayor would be a little more sensitive to the political ramifications of this.”

The city council approved the first reading of the salary ordinance on Tuesday. It is scheduled to vote on it a second and final time at its meeting next month. If approved, it will then go to state officials.

Michelle Thomas, acting business administrator, said the fiscal impact of these increases is $185,000, but said they have already been included in last year’s and this year’s budget.

“These employees have not received salary increases since 2006,” said Thomas.

Thomas said the employees deserve a raise because they have found ways to increase the city’s revenues even as state appropriations have dropped.

“It’s because of the efforts of these leaders who have been working really hard with no cost-of-living adjustment,” Thomas said.

The proposed increase, she said, is the average of all the increases that union-represented employees received. Thomas said the city just settled and signed off on its last remaining union contract with SEIU 617, prompting the administration to propose raises for management.

The nonunion employees on tap for a raise include Thomas, corporation counsel Julien X. Neals, Police Director Garry McCarthy, Fire Director David Giordano, Police Chief Anthony Campos, city clerk Robert Marasco and Stefan Pryor, director of the Department of Economic and Housing Development.

Thomas’ salary is $178,145, Neals is earning $154,057, McCarthy’s salary is $170,000, Giordano is earning $137,125, Campos’ salary is $149,360, Marasco is earning $148,214, and Pryor is earning $178,125.

Pryor’s salary was adjusted in 2007 from $137,125 to $178,125 — which is what he had negotiated for when he took the job.

“This to me seems outrageous at a time when everyone is struggling financially,” said McHose. “For this small number of political appointees in the city of Newark’s administration to receive retroactive pay raises is wrong.”

In addition to high-level directors, the city also is proposing to give raises to aides in Booker’s office, the executive and personal secretaries in the mayor’s office, and all of the council aides.

The salary range for aides in Booker’s office runs from $58,956 to $135,340, but seven of his 10 aides earn more than $100,000.

Aides include key employees such as chief of staff Pablo Fonseca, who was the highest-paid aide, and deputy chief of staff Jermaine James, who earned $114,821.

Council President Mildred Crump said voting in favor of the increases was a difficult decision for the entire council, which voted unanimously on the first reading of the salary ordinance. Council members Oscar S. James II and Augusto Amador were absent.

“It was a most difficult decision,” Crump said. “The unfortunate truth is the legislation ties the salaries of those who make six figures with those who make $35,000 and $45,000.”

Aides to the council members earn between $43,596 and $64,651.

Crump said she is aware of the negative perception this will bring to a city that has already been criticized for its spending practices.

“As so often happens, there are people who are the recipient of a windfall when you’re trying to help the underdog,” Crump said.

West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice said he agonized over voting in favor of the ordinance.

“We did it for the lower-ranking folks,” he said. “We couldn’t separate them out. We thought at the end of the day it was in the interest of the lower-salary folks who are not covered by contracts to get the 3.5 percent.”

Rice said the administration has agreed to find other cuts in its budget in exchange for these increases.

The city has struggled for years to get its finances in order. Under former mayor Sharpe James, it balanced its budget using hundreds of millions of dollars from a one-time settlement with the Port Authority over payments for Newark Liberty International Airport.

Under Booker’s administration, its reliance on the payments has dropped to $40 million, but the city still needed help from the state to balance its budget and avoid a significant tax increase.

City officials anticipate asking for more emergency money next year. In addition to the hiring and salary freezes, employees are forbidden from out-of-town travel and overnight stays in New Jersey.

Katie Wang may be reached at (973) 392-1504 or kwang@starledger.com.

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Cops shouldn’t have to sing for their supper
Posted by djcohen August 20, 2008 17:19PM
As if I needed another reason to never again visit Staten Island…

I went there a few weeks ago to cover a press conference at which Belmar Mayor Ken Pringle caught hell for having suggested that Staten Islanders are not the world’s most well-mannered tourists.

The point of the exercise was to introduce outsiders to the wonders of Staten Island. But it cost me an $8 toll just to get onto the island. And then the other day the New Yorkers hit me up for another $50. It seems a camera caught me running a red light. I imagine these cameras nail a lot of Jersey drivers who make the mistake of crossing the Arthur Kill. That’s because our state, despite its many flaws, at least has sufficient intervals between the green and the red lights. So we’re easy pickings for those greedy New Yorkers.

Those red-light cameras don’t do anything to improve traffic flow. But they sure do a lot to improve cash flow. And soon we’ll be getting them in New Jersey thanks to the Democrats who run this state. The Democrats sneaked through a bill permitting such cameras last winter while everyone was occupied with that other form of highway robbery, the “asset monetization” of the toll roads.

And now we’ve got a plan to charge rural towns for the cost of State Police patrols. Patrolling small towns is the reason the State Police were formed in the first place. And ever since that 1921 statute was passed, the troopers have provided police services across a wide swath of the state at minimal cost. The system’s not broken. So why is the administration trying to fix it?

About 30 small-town mayors got together last week to discuss that very question. A week ago Tuesday, the mayors met in Hunterdon County and decided they will refuse to pay the new fees imposed by the state for the rural patrols. The Corzine administration is demanding a total of $12.5 million from 89 towns. The Democrats say they need the dough. But the very next day they provided proof that they don’t. The Corzine administration announced that Newark will receive an additional $45 million in “distressed cities” aid. That’s in addition to $153 million the state had already allocated to distressed cities - which are distressed mainly because of the incompetence and corruption of the Democratic machines that run them.

In other words, the state has a $198 million slush fund to bail out Democratic cities. But Corzine can’t afford to provide a service to small towns at a mere 6 percent of that cost.

There’s something else going on here. And that something else isn’t good for us Jersey drivers.

Having created a nonexistent crisis over a blip in the budget, the Democrats immediately created a solution that could cost you plenty. State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat from Cape May County whose district includes many rural towns patrolled by the troopers, proposed a $40 surcharge on traffic tickets. This would generate not a mere $12.5 million but a staggering $80 million per year.

The Democrats tried this stunt before, by the way. Jim McGreevey was fond of balancing budgets by imposing traffic ticket surcharges and then selling bonds funded by the proceeds. Drivers ticketed in 2024 will still be paying off the Democrats’ debts from 2004.

But the new surcharge is just part of the problem. What good is a surcharge on traffic tickets if you don’t have cops to write the tickets in the first place?

That’s the real problem with Corzine’s plan. The mayors at that meeting said they are being pressured by the state to start municipal police forces or to join with neighboring towns in setting up regional police forces.

Once you hire all of those new cops, how will you pay for them? You have them write tickets. The cops have a name for this sort of thing. They call it “singing for your supper.” And they don’t like it. Most cops would prefer to do actual police work as opposed to writing parking tickets and setting up speed traps.

But all over New Jersey, cash-strapped towns are turning to their police forces to generate revenue. This effect is most prominently seen at the Shore, where speed traps and “gotcha” parking meters are ubiquitous. But the syndrome is spreading, and once those red-light cameras are installed, no driver will be safe anywhere.

Well, if the Democrats want to raise taxes, they should come right out and raise taxes. The cops aren’t tax collectors. And a stream of traffic tickets is not a revenue stream - unless you make the mistake of visiting Staten Island.
ADD: FOR THOSE NAIVE ENOUGH TO TRUST THOSE CAMERAS: Read this column by Pat Bedard of Car and Driver.

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