Mayor Resigns in South Harrison

The mayor of South Harrison Township, an African American, resigned his post this week. Here's the article.

Cooperative Planning at Rutgers Camden

In an excellent article, Fredda Sacharow reports on a thoughtful solution to the obvious challenge facing New Jersey developers: how to work together on issues and initiatives of shared concern in a way that preserves the traditional "home rule" focus that so many Jersey residents believe in.

Richard Harris is the director of the Rand Institute and a professor of political science, both at Rutgers–Camden, and has observed that without such cooperation, municipalities working in individually rational ways often create regionally irrational outcomes."

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Our Revolutionary Past

New Jersey is called the Crossroads of the Revolution at least in part because, as I recall, more revolutionary battles were fought here than in any other state.

Here's an excerpt from the book, Crossroads of the American Revolution, that serves to prove the point:

Located between the British base at New York and the rebel capital at Philadelphia, New Jersey was the most war-ravaged of the 13 original states. More than 600 skirmishes and battles were fought on its soil and more than 150 naval actions on its waters.

Then, as now, New Jersey straddled roads connecting north and south. In 1775 and 1776, state regiments marched north. During November and December 1776, the remnants of the main Continental Army fled south across New Jersey, pursued by a British army. Just a month later, they retraced part of their route to defeat German and British detachments in Trenton and Princeton and march on to Morristown. This was the first of three winters that the Continental Army spent in New Jersey.

Its a truism to say that the past affects the present; I've made several observations here along those lines.

The book, and the quote above, is from a blog by Patrick Murray, My Historic NJ, that I found this morning.

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Who, Me? Share?

There has been much in the news over the past year about New Jersey's multiplied municipalities, anywhere between 500 and 600, depending on the latest count.

So there have been calls for reducing extra layers of bureaucracy (and paid bureaucrats are included in that).

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Speaking of Walking...Check out Pitman

I live up the road from Pitman, NJ, an interesting (to say the least) little borough that's only about 2 square miles, and is built around "The Grove," an old turn-of-the-century Methodist Camp.

Get this: you can't drive into the Grove; you can only walk-in. Talk about pedestrian friendly!

Well, Pitman has been going through positive changes over the years, and revitalization is always popular news; hence the Inquirer's report the other day met with lots of positive feedback from readers.

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