Home Rule

Poland, the country that lit the spark that led to the liberation of Eastern Europe, is extending democratic self-government to the grassroots, bidding to be leader again. The Sejm, the revivified parliament, has granted home-rule powers to the nation's 2,400 municipalities. No less than 52,000 local officials, the first democratically chosen mayors and councils since the 1930s, were elected May 27. Not Czechoslovakia, not Hungary, not any other nation of the crumbled Soviet empire has moved beyond nationwide parliamentary democracy to let citizens choose their own city and town leaders.

Although the idea of reforming the tax collector's job has found favor among township commissioners, board members last week seemed disinclined to spend $7,500 for an independent study of home rule. Home rule was raised as an option at the Board of Commissioners' Aug. 12 meeting, when President Richard E. Fluge said the tax collector should be appointed rather than elected, and thereby more accountable to the board. Pennsylvania's First Class Township Code requires that a tax collector be elected.

If all goes according to plan, the Pennsylvania legislature this week should begin voting on a series of bills that would help passage of the state's $16.1 billion general funds spending plan for fiscal 1996. Republican leaders in the House and Senate have been hunkered down in negotiations with Republican Gov. Ridge over what shape the state budget will ultimately take. As of this weekend, a critical element remained out of grasp: the handful of votes needed to get the governor's educational package over the top in the House.

Primary day was strike three for a home-rule charter in Abington Township. By an unofficial 54 percent to 46 percent, Abington Township voters cast "no" votes to the proposed charter, which would have taken executive responsibilities away from the Board of Commissioners and made it harder to fire the township manager. "I'm disappointed in the voters of Abington," said Patricia Murtha, one of nine study-commission members. "Home rule would have given them a stronger form of government.

It's becoming routine in Haverford Township, recurring about twice a month. The words vary slightly, but the outcome does not. It happens like this: Commissioner Ben Kapustin makes a motion to break up a controversial home- rule referendum into separate ballot questions. That way, voters could reject a move to add two at-large commissioners to the board and still approve five, less weighty governmental questions. The board rejects the motion, generally by a vote of something-to-three, with Fred Moran and Kenneth Clouse siding with Kapustin.

Gwendolyn Faison was hopping mad. Camden's mayor had just spoken at a rally hastily pulled together to oppose legislation that would have stripped her and City Council of their powers to govern New Jersey's poorest city. The bill was part of a state plan to revitalize the city by appointing a financial czar to oversee it while pouring in millions in state resources. But Faison - Camden's first female African American mayor - was having none of it. "They don't know who they're messing with," the 76-year-old grandmother said after stepping down from the podium in Camden's City Hall Plaza that sunny June day. Though frail-looking by comparison to her brawny, controversial predecessor, Milton Milan, Faison is already making waves, battling to preserve home rule while reviving her impoverished city.

A panel set up by voters to study possible changes in Bucks County's government has voted not to recommend any revisions and to disband next month after it issues a final report. By a 5-4 margin, the Bucks County Government Study Commission rejected the idea of drafting a home-rule charter. A second option - to recommend one of six optional forms of government without drafting a home-rule charter - was defeated by a vote of 7-2. The vote, taken Monday night, followed five months of hearings at a cost to the taxpayers of about $42,000, according to John McClure, chairman of the commission and a Republican.

The Feb. 24 editorial "Kean must not waver now" clearly establishes that The Inquirer is not a truly American newspaper. Home rule is sacrosanct not only in public education but also in the total operation of a democracy. If the State of New Jersey, including Gov. Kean, would carry out court mandates on the financing of public education, school districts would not fall short of the funds necessary to do what is required. It is evident that The Inquirer is unmindful also of the two sad cases - Trenton and Newark - in which the state did intervene for periods of five years, costing local taxpayers more than $10 million in each instance, and left with nothing improved.

If the people of Bucks County took as much interest in the condition of their county government as they do in the condition of their front lawns, they would have more money in their pockets at the end of the year and they would have a county government responsive to the needs of the people rather than the needs of the political professionals. The problem is the party bosses. With a patronage form of government such as we have here, "bossism" rules supreme. A Government Study Commission was elected last November to study and propose changes to modernize our archaic form of government.

Upper Merion residents did a different kind shopping this week as they looked for ways to establish a leaner government in their township. At a meeting of the economic development committee Tuesday night, committee members held up home rule to scrutiny in the hope of finding a plan to make the township more efficient. "One of the charges of the supervisors was for us to examine alternate forms of government," said committee chairman Stanley Channick. "We don't plan to go home rule, but our intention is to examine it as an alternative.

By Chad Goerner An Inquirer poll this fall showed that New Jersey residents are increasingly in favor of municipal consolidation and shared services. It may not be clear to elected officials attached to "home rule" in a state with 566 municipalities (soon to be 565), but the residents are right. A year ago, the residents of Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, where I'm the mayor, approved the state's first large municipal consolidation in more than a century - a move expected to save millions and improve services.

One woman said she was charged when she had her boyfriend over for Thanksgiving dinner. A 57-year-old man said he got into trouble for visiting his sister. In the crowd waiting for Woodbury Municipal Court to open on a recent Wednesday were these two and others who had run afoul of the town's requirement that anyone living at a rental property register with authorities. Ryan McMichael, 22, said he got a summons after he and a friend got into a fight on his front lawn. Neither pressed charges, but police cited McMichael for allowing the friend, who was wanted on outstanding warrants, to stay at his apartment.

You might think you're ready for tomorrow's election. And, sure, you might have attended your local council forum, read your campaign literature and even clipped out endorsements. But we bet you're not ready. Because you're going to walk into that voting booth, look at the ballot, and realize that - once again - you've forgotten all about the ballot question. The single yes-or-no question on tomorrow's ballot asks voters if the Home Rule Charter, the city's governing document, should be amended to create a new commission called the Jobs Commission.

They may not get the attention of the district attorney's race, but the city will vote in Tuesday's primary on two proposed changes to its Home Rule Charter. The first (Bill 080748) would mandate that police, firefighters, and paramedics killed in the line of duty would automatically receive a posthumous promotion to the next rank, entitling their families to higher pension payments. The second (Bill 090171) would allow City Council to decide, by a two-thirds vote, how and when the city's legal notices on hearings, bills, procurement contracts, etc., should be disseminated.

When Robert Burton called the Medford Lakes police to report that someone had cut the $3 Christmas lights on his house, not only did the police chief answer the phone, Burton recalled, but two squad cars had pulled up to investigate by the time he had hung up and walked outside. "Tell me where that happens," Burton said. When they're not working out of the department's log cabin headquarters, police officers say, they are driving up to 70 miles per 12-hour shift as they patrol their 1.2 square-mile borough of woods, lakes and rustic homes.

Referendum questions in Charlestown Township and Malvern Borough were approved overwhelmingly in Tuesday's elections, but a controversial one in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District was defeated in a closer vote. They were the only referendums in the county. The Web site of the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District reported that "unofficial results" there were 4,743 no votes and 3,974 yes votes, a 54.4 percent rejection of a proposed borrowing issue. The Unionville referendum asked voters to approve borrowing up to $30 million to renovate and expand Unionville High School.

New Jersey's 80 Assembly members and 40 senators, in an election year, are caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the growing frustration of their constituents over the state's highest-in-the-nation property-tax burden. The hard place is the resistance by the constituents to any meaningful steps to reduce the burden. The legislators know that reelection depends on walking the fine line between the rock and the hard place - without breaching the iron wall of state politics known as "home rule.

James and Rhonda Horn and their six children stood with other homeschoolers behind Gov. Rendell as he signed SB 361 on Nov. 10. Now James Jr., 10, Jacquelle, 9, and Joseph, 7, and their younger siblings can look forward to trying out for football, basketball and other extracurricular activities in the Philadelphia School District. A month ago, the boys and their father met with a representative of the governor's office seeking support for this legislation. Although slightly over half of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts had already developed policies to allow home-schooled students access to sports and other extracurricular activities, many districts still specifically excluded students in home-education programs before the law was enacted.

A proposed residential facility in Delanco for troubled teenage boys does not conform to the zoning requirements that govern the sprawling mansion where it had been planned, a state Superior Court judge ruled yesterday. The Delaware Avenue property, known as The Columns, had been a retirement home for decades. Restorative Programming Inc. of Ewing, Mercer County, which had hoped to house as many as 37 emotionally disturbed teens there, argued that its operation would not be much different.

Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey's budget speech struck an unintentional note of irony when he compared the state to a family living beyond its means. In New Jersey, many families are living beyond their means because of the price of housing. And one of the reasons housing is so expensive in New Jersey may also be one of the reasons state leaders are scrambling to bridge a budget gap. With all of the issues the budget puts in the spotlight, it's easy to forget that the price of homes continues to rise in New Jersey, making it more difficult to find basic housing or a well-earned move-up home.