This jury-rigged solution has been in place for more than a year.
Camden is so broke, so unable to perform the basic functions of government, that the obvious solution - repairing the century-old brick sewer system - is almost impossible to achieve, fiscally and politically.
Life in Camden wasn't supposed to be like this. Seven years ago, New Jersey rolled out a revitalization plan that brought with it the biggest municipal takeover in American history.
After years of being subsidized by state taxpayers, corrupt and crumbling Camden would be taken over, repaired, and put on a path to self-reliance.
Then-Gov. Jim McGreevey gave Camden $175 million in bonds and loans, plus a one-time $7.5 million appropriation from the state budget, in exchange for an appointed chief operating officer to run the government and for gubernatorial control over the school board. His plan would create jobs, improve the quality of life, decrease crime, demolish all unsafe vacant buildings, lure new businesses, and, yes, mend sewers.
Five years later, when the recovery effort was first scheduled to be completed, the Gonzalezes bought a small rowhouse with money earned cleaning offices in Cherry Hill. But their odorous problem has now forced them to put that house on the market for the price they paid, $69,900.
So far, no buyer is interested.
Unknown to the Gonzalezes - or their neighbors who have cleaned black muck from their own basements - Cherry Street's sewer was labeled an "emergency" with a purple dot in an April 2003 capital-improvement plan.
The state spent $145,570 on that plan as part of the recovery, but nothing to solve the problem.
Cherry Street tells the story of Camden today. A 13-month Inquirer investigation has found that with notable exceptions, the state takeover has failed.
Goals not reached
