Christie OKs law making town mergers easier

Legislation that will make it easier for towns to merge was signed into law by Gov. Christie on Wednesday, clearing the way for Cherry Hill Township officials and a Merchantville citizens group to study consolidation.

The new law permits the combination of voter petitions and applications by elected governing bodies to create municipal consolidation study commissions, the first step in a possible merger.

The legislation's backers, members of a grassroots organization, Merchantville Connecting for the Future, had been exploring a merger with Cherry Hill for about a year as a way of eliminating duplicated administrative bodies and saving money.

But their efforts - which included petitions with hundreds of signatures - were thwarted in December when the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) rejected an application to study the consolidation.

The DCA said the "hybrid application," resulting from the action of the governing body of one municipality and a citizens' group of another, was not permitted under New Jersey's Local Option Consolidation Act.

The Merchantville residents were joined in their effort by Courage to Connect New Jersey, a nonprofit organization that is leading the charge for municipal consolidation.

The two groups pushed for a law that would allow "mixed and matched" applications.

"We are thrilled that the governor recognized the importance of allowing the people - not only politicians - to decide the future of their communities," said Gina Genovese, executive director of Courage to Connect.

"The governor is making it easier for grassroots organizations to get organized and create municipal consolidation committees to study if consolidation is right for them," she said.

One sponsor of the legislation, Assemblyman Louis D. Greenwald (D., Camden) said any effort to fix the state's property-tax system "must begin with removing unacceptable bureaucratic obstacles."

"It's absurd to think that the state would block a merger study because the towns didn't ask in identical ways, but with this law, that type of barrier is removed," he said.