CNB TIPS AND SNIPPETS:Gloucester City Honored, Borough of Gibbsboro Removes Part-time Attorneys from Pension Fund
Gloucester City Honored, Borough of Gibbsboro Removes Part-time Attorneys from Pension Fund
Friday, October 17, 2014
BY WILLIAM E. CLEARY SR.
COMMUNITY OF GLOUCESTER CITY HONORED—NerdWallet.com has named Gloucester
City, one of 20 cities on the rise in the state of New Jersey. Gloucester City placed 10 in their analysis. Other communities in the South Jersey area that were mentioned include: Williamstown #3, Hammonton #4, Bridgeton #5, Haddonfield #15 and Millville #18.
From the NerdWallet October 7 article,
In a state where economic revitalization hasn’t been consistent, it pays to know where to find the best opportunities. NerdWallet crunched the data to help you discover the cities and communities that are growing the fastest. Our series has analyzed states across America to determine which cities are “on the rise” based on growth of the working-age population, employment and income from 2009 to 2012.
When we analyzed the numbers for New Jersey, certain trends became apparent. Here’s what our top places had in common:
• Employment growth is lagging. While many states have been recovering jobs since 2010, New Jersey lags in new employment. On our list, only Hammonton showed employment growth over 5%.
• Working residents are getting richer. Even though job growth has remained relatively flat, residents’ income increased considerably in places — as high as 25.9% in our top spot.
• Industry is diverse. New Jersey’s economic landscape was one of the most varied yet in NerdWallet’s analysis of economic growth across the nation.
Out of 565 communities in the state of New Jersey, NerdWallet looked at only 131 of those for their analysis. The ones included had populations of 10,000 or more. Certain places were omitted due to inconsistent data for 2009 to 2012
Founded in 2009, NerdWallet.com is a personal finance website which is branded as helping consumers make money decisions. The site builds data-driven tools and crunches numbers. Categories of coverage include education, finance, health, investing, and shopping. To see the complete list of the 20 cities on the rise, along with the methodology the website used to score each community go here
In 2007 the Philadelphia magazine named the City of Gloucester as A Community to Watch, One of the Next Hot Neighborhoods.
Timothy Haas, Philly Magazine online editor at the time, was asked by CNBNews what stood out about Gloucester City. Why did Philly Magazine predict Gloucester City's name will go up in lights in the next 10 years ? Why was Gloucester City chosen as A Community to Watch? One of the Next Hot Neighborhoods.
Haas said, "The idea wasn't that each of the 40 communities matched each of the trends; just at least one of them. Gloucester City fits within trend #3 as a town with good bones -- its walk able, it's on the water, it has solid housing stock, and is of course very close to the bridge to Philly. "
PART-TIME ATTORNEYS REMOVED FROM GIBBSBORO’S PENSION FUND—John Paff, chairman of the NJ Libertarian Party’s Open Government Advocacy is considering filing a lawsuit against the borough of Gibbsboro and the state of New Jersey because of borough’s handling of the pension funds for two Gibbsboro part-time employees, Municipal Prosecutor Timothy Higgins and Public Defender Charles Wiggington.
In a letter addressed to Marc Greenfield of the Pension Fraud and Abuse Unit Paff writes,
In summary, we have determined that both Higgins and Wiggington were certified by Gibbsboro as being PERS eligible until their termination from PERS effective August 30, 2014. This morning, I received, via an OPRA request to Gibbsboro, your August 18, 2014 e-mail to Borough Clerk Anne Levy and your colleague Kristin Bell's August 13, 2014 letter to the Borough. Both the e-mail and the letter are on-line here.
From reviewing all the material, it appears to me that Gibbsboro was carrying Higgins and Wiggington on the PERS rolls, and probably intended to keep carrying them, until the Pension Fraud and Abuse Unit recently decided to conduct its investigation into these lawyers' PERS eligibility. Under the pressure of your Unit's investigation, Gibbsboro finally threw in the towel and decided to remove the two lawyers from the PERS rolls.
While this is a good thing, it leaves open the question of whether Higgins' and Wiggington's separation from PERS ought to have been retroactive to 2008. It seems to us at least arguable that if Higgins and Wiggington are not now eligible for PERS, they probably have not been eligible for the last six or so years.
As a public service, we may be interested in filing a lawsuit in lieu of prerogative writs seeking an order compelling the State to retroactively remove Higgins and Wiggington from the pension rolls on the proper date in 2008. Similarly, we might investigate filing citizen complaints, in accordance with R.7:2-2(a)(1), against Gibbsboro's Certifying Officer and Certifying Officer's Supervisor if they certified to Higgins's and Wiggington's PERS eligibility when it was plain that they were not eligible.
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