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When Union County voters cast their
ballots this November in races for the U.S. Senate, congress, county
freeholder and municipal officials, they will also have an opportunity
to decide on three public ballot questions.
State and local officials gathered in Newark's Weequahic
Park to show their support for public question No. 2, which would
dedicate revenues collected from an existing corporate tax and
reallocate them to fund capital improvements and facilities on open
spaces throughout the state. Weequahic Park Association Project Manager
Kevin Moore worked with the New Jersey Audubon Society to craft the
legislation for the public question. The vote would allow for an
amendment to the state's constitution. The goal is to channel more money
toward urban parks, which had received less money from previous open
space funding structures.
The other ballot questions include one geared toward
addressing property tax reform, while the other is a constitutional
amendment that would dedicate revenues from an existing motor fuel tax
to the state transportation system.
"Question two is the first critical step in
acknowledging the function urban and local parks represent in New
Jersey," Moore said in a prepared statement. "It is essential
we recognize their demonstrated economic and ecological value."
Wilbur McNeil, president of the WPA, called the questions,
"truly something good for all the urban parks in New Jersey."
If approved, the question would create an ongoing, stable
source of funding for repairs and improvements to both local and state
parks and natural areas throughout the state, materials from the Outdoor
Recreation Alliance said.
The constitutional amendment would simply reallocate a
surplus of existing, already environmentally dedicated funds from the
Corporate Business Tax, in the amount of $15 million a year throughout
2015 and $32 million a year thereafter, for capital projects, the
materials said.
Tom Gilmore, president of the New Jersey Audubon Society,
also put his support behind the question.
Gilmore served on the Governor's Council on the Outdoors in
the late 1990s, which yielded the Garden State Preservation Trust in
1998. When the question to establish the trust was put to voters, it was
approved, and in urban communities, the initiative passed by a margin of
more than 3-1.
However, Gilmore said that with the implementation of the
trust, two critical components were overlooked.
While the state did well to preserve 100 million acres
across the state, it failed to create a stable source of funding for
capital improvements for those properties, as well as a stable source
for operation, maintenance and stewardship.
The funding allocated through the public question, and the
constitutional amendment, would address that.
Statewide, Gilmore said, approximately $250 million of
repairs need to be completed in the state-owned parks.
"(It's an) unprecedented opportunity to invest in
their parks," Gilmore said of the appeal of the question to voters.
Greg Remaud, preservation director of NY/NJ Baykeeper
also talked about the benefits of parks on their surrounding
neighborhood and communities.
Calling attention to the GSPT's shortcoming, Remaud said
that urban communities had been asked to chose between construction of
more playgrounds and amenities, or acquiring additional open space.
The constitutional amendment, he said, would address
those issues, putting the state's urban communities in a position to do
both if they chose to.
Moore was careful to note that the new amendment was not
designed to take the place of the GSPT, which is up for renewal next
year, but to supplement it. After the votes are cast Nov. 7, work can
begin on enabling the actual legislation and then a prioritization of
the projects, Moore said.
In the coming months the Audubon Society, the WPA, the ORA,
and the NY/NJ Baykeeper will be bringing information about the public
question to communities across the state. Press events in Middlesex and
Hudson counties are already planned, and Moore said he is in the process
of reaching out to local mayors to spread the word.
Lauren DeFilippo can be reached at 908-686-7700, ext. 119,
or
unioncountyb@thelocalsource.com. |
