CNBNews

Democrats continue to rule in the state legislature and in most counties in South Jersey.  I thought for sure we would see something change as a result of a number of key legislators being arrested this year and charged with abusing their power. Needless to say it is kind of hard to choose who to pick when both Republicans and Democrats have been caught with their hand in the "Cookie Jar".

Voters did send Trenton a message with the defeat of the two questions on the ballot dealing with spending.  Hopefully our leaders got the message to stop squandering our tax dollars and begin working on ways to balance the budget. New Jersey is broke. Governor Corzine the supposedly "Wall Street Genius" was elected last year after promising he would do a better job of managing state finances. The populace is still waiting for him to live up to that commitment.

I for one couldn't understand Assemblyman Roberts's proposal to have the 1 percent tax increase, levied last year to balance the budget, to be dedicated to reducing property taxes. If you recall the state was shut down because the Governor was against signing the bill to increase the sales tax to 7 percent.  Yet a year later the legislators were all in favor of dedicating the one percent to reduce property taxes. Confused, so am I.  Just cut back the sales tax to 6 percent and let us manage our own money. 

Locally, three newcomers, (John Hutchinson, Bruce Parry, Kelli Ferry) all endorsed by the "New Democrats" were elected on Tuesday to Gloucester City Council. Gone in January will be three members of the Old Democrat regime (Elsie Loebell, Jean Kaye, and Rocky Kormann) left over from the days of former mayors Gorman and Kilcourse.

The "James Gang" (Mayor Bill James, Councilmen Nick Marchese, and Jay Brophy) along with Councilman Hagan will now have complete control of the governing body.  They have some tough decisions to make in the upcoming year. Example: dealing with a new union contract for the career fire fighters among other things. 

I am hoping in 2008 Mayor and Council will do something about changing our present form of government to a Commission form.  With that in place our present system of dividing the City into Wards would be eliminated. Thus a candidate for council in the years to come would run at large. Studies have shown that the present system we are using is out-of-date for a community the size of Gloucester City.

Another change I would like to see is an ordinance or resolution that would keep City employees from being in charge of the local Democrat Club. I don't know if that would be legal. But I do think we all agree that something has to be done. For too long certain members of the Democrat committee/Club were in charge of the policy passed by previous members of City Council.  It was because of the wheeling and dealing hidden behind the closed doors of the Democrat Club that this City was in such disarray.

Mayor James and his fellow council members have done a fantastic job in a short amount of time cleaning up the mess that they inherited from former administrations. I believe they are on the right track; and better things are yet to come.