Torricelli on the open space bond referendum

I agree with Bob. Voting Yes is an investment in our state and economy that pays us back many times over, unlike many other state programs. Don't deny funds to what keeps water clean just because you don't like the other things the state does. you'd rather keep it clean at the source than pay many X to clean up dirty water.

By voting Yes you also save billions on flood costs, lost tourism revenue, lost property values due to unwise overdevelopment, etc. It's better to keep many spaces open than develop them and then pay more in service costs/obligations than you receive in ratables...a big problem in NJ.

It’s always amusing to see New Jersey’s Poster Boy for Corruption (multi-year nominee and winner) weighing in on what’s right and wrong

…if you see the author of this nonsense in your neighborhood, bring your children inside and lock the doors!

Enough said!

So you think it is better to saddle our children and grandchildren in debt so that they can drive past a patch of green grass or a parking lot when they go home to ant colony type communities.

Overturn the Mt. Laurel decision and this stops being an issue.

"Developers who have purchased thousands of pristine acres to build more shopping malls and densely populated housing tracts are in trouble. They're willing to sell some of this land for pennies on the dollar. If we don't buy it now, we'll pay much more later. It's a once in a lifetime situation."

This is almost the same rationale Corzine provided for dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Lehman Brothers.

That was an attempt to bail out an investment bank, this is an attempt to bail out developers. It has very little to do with the reasons some of its supporters provide.

That was a bad decision then, passing this ballot question would be a bad decision now.

It should be defeated! It needs to be defeated! It must be defeated!

Here is a little story to consider. A Middlesex County Town has been offered a chance to buy back land from a developer as "Open Space". The developer bought an old farm for about $10 million a few years ago. Now, his financing and business plans show that it would be a bad investment to develop new housing, so he has a great idea for local residents. He is willing to sell 50% of the land he bought back to the Town for $25 million. Wow! He makes $15 million and keeps half of the land he purchased. Maybe Mr. Torricelli can help us understand the benficial results. It just looks like more corruption to me.

he got caught up in the NY State pension scandal due to his affiliation with Searle & Co (he recently switched firms see below)

from the NY Times website:
"Searle & Company, a small investment firm in Greenwich, Conn....which has a handful of employees and an office above a Christian Science reading room.....As a placement agent, Mr. Morris embarked on three years of deal-making, in which he and a Hevesi aide, David Loglisci, extracted fees from private equity firms seeking to manage state pension investments in New York, according to the indictment brought by Mr. Cuomo and a related civil complaint by securities regulators. The two men are accused of requiring fund managers to pay a fee to Mr. Morris, who provided no legitimate services in return, if they wanted state business."

Torricelli's new home:

PICKWICK CAPITAL PARTNERS, LLC
49 BRIDGE STREET, SUITE 2
LAMBERTVILLE, NJ 08530

On the Green Acres referendum. For years, our family has advocated & worked tirelessly for farmer (not farmland) preservation and the benefits of open space. Living in a co. that has the most open space in the state, we've seen both the good & bad of preservation. Don't poo-poo those who speak out against bonding for land preservation. Their points are valid too. I've long heard opponents say "what happens 20 yrs. from now to the open space, when no more land is left? the state will just take it and ..." I never thought it could happen, would happen. But ... Astro turf fields and urban parks were just the beginning of the wasteful spending of preservation tax dollars. Now, the definition of agriculture is being challenged to include so-called green energy projects (700+ acre solar panel farms, wind turbine farms (oh the noise) and the like). Impervious cover of any kind defeats the benefits of open space. And then there's eminent domain and what happens when a utility like the elec. co. exercises its rights of way & easements, destroying the open space and a farmer's right to farm with monstrous infrastructure. Buying up open space & farmland at outrageous prices is not the answer. And, it's not about clean water as the latest referendum claim. We need to address the real issues: lousy planning on a town's part, special interests, the onerous limitations set by the MLUL, the Mt. Laurel decision, political influence and inside deals. We have to think forward and address the real problems in a meaningful & effective way, without the use of taxpayer dollars.