County To Buy Cranford Property

From tonight’s agenda:

809-2019 BOND ORDINANCE TO AUTHORIZE THE ACQUISITION OF REAL PROPERTY IN THE TOWNSHIP OF CRANFORD FOR OPEN SPACE CONSERVATION AND RECREATIONAL PURPOSES IN, BY AND FOR THE COUNTY OF UNION, STATE OF NEW JERSEY, TO APPROPRIATE THE SUM OF $530,000 TO PAY THE COST THEREOF, TO MAKE A DOWN PAYMENT, TO AUTHORIZE THE ISSUANCE OF BONDS TO FINANCE SUCH APPROPRIATION AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE ISSUANCE OF BOND ANTICIPATION NOTES IN ANTICIPATION OF THE ISSUANCE OF SUCH BONDS.

Even though Open Space taxes bring in about $10 million annually, most of that money is appropriated for the county’s own budget leaving the need to borrow. But the ordinance is not up so we do not know which Cranford property the county is looking to buy.

What do you think?

Cut and Paster Scutari

That’s the picture USA Today used in their investigative report with this blurb under it.

UCIA/Aries Biosolids Scheme in Linden

Here is the scheme as I see it now:

1. Union County Improvement Authority (UCIA) sells $50 million in tax-exempt bonds;
2. UCIA loans most of that money to Aries Linden, LLC to refurbish a building owned by the Linden Roselle Sewerage Authority;
3. Bond default in 2022 after all the usual suspects have taken their cuts.

But maybe it is different this time so I did a little digging and this is what I came up with so far.

UCIA Doing Biosolids for $50 Million

You will recall from the last blog that the Union County Improvement Authority (UCIA) has gotten about $30 million* from county taxpayers since 2004, lately to keep from defaulting on bonds from an inane solar panel scheme. That amount is headed higher with another deal going down:

2019-529: Resolution of the Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Union, New Jersey providing the consent for the Union County Improvement Authority to undertake and implement the construction of a Biodosolids Processing Facility to be located in the City of Linden, New Jersey.

Check Registry Date – May 2019

Click here for a spreadsheet of payouts from 2004 sorted by recipient and date paid through May, 2019 as taken from Union County Check Registry data. Some familiar names are in additional worksheets in the file. Among them:

Bond Ordinance – 2019

Whatever Union County can’t get from raising taxes as much as is allowable under the tax cap and stealing Open Space taxes they bond for each summer. They will do it again tomorrow and this year’s number is $48,560,397.

Still Enough For Everybody?

In an unusual moment of candor typically reserved for backroom whispers or private email servers our political boss in Union County reassured his electorate after a bit of an internal kerfuffle with the words:

“As my mayor in Linden says, there’s enough for everybody. Right, Mayor?” Scutari said. “And I pledge to work with him and my members of my city council in Linden — congratulations, mayor — and work with everyone here regardless of where we were before we came in here today.”

Which is what an audience dependent on government jobs and no-bid contracts wants to hear. But is there still really enough?