Turnpike Authority Issues Discussed at Meet the Legislators Night

Members of Council and the township’s residents remain unhappy with the possibility of off the Garden State Parkway, and have been particularly angry about the New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s assertion that it “doesn’t deal with individual municipalities, only the counties.”

They are so unsatisfied, it was the first order of business broached during the question and answer period during Tuesday night’s “Meet the Legislators” night with District 9 representatives at the municipal complex on Feb. 21.

The entrance would be closed in connection with a project that would bring state police barracks and two new full interchanges to Galloway. Jim McElwee, who ran for council as a Democrat last November, raised the issue along with a 50 percent raise in toll prices and the removal of trees along the Parkway with no plan to replace, per state mandate.

“We’re not getting due consideration in this region,” said Sen. Christopher Connors, who was joined by Assemblyman Brian Rumpf and Assemblywoman DiAnne Gove.

Connors said he and Sen. Jeff Van Drew are co-sponsoring legislation that would require the Turnpike Authority to include representation from Southern New Jersey on its seven-member board. Currently, three members of the board are from Monmouth County, while the rest all hail from Bergen, Middlesex and Mercer counties, with one vacancy.

“No one from Atlantic, Ocean and Cape May counties are represented,” Connors said. “The statute needs to be changed. We need at least one person from South Jersey who can advocate for our interests down here. A vacancy recently came up; they could just appoint someone from down here and tell us the bill is not needed because now we are represented.”

Connors also believes two of the authority’s two monthly meetings should be held in Southern New Jersey on a rotating basis.

“That way, folks down here have the opportunity to express their points of view on individual projects and on operations as a whole,” Connors said.

As far as the toll is concerned, Connors said he was one of only six Republicans to vote for a Democratically-sponsored bill to eliminate automatic toll increases, such as the one on Jan. 1 that raised tolls by 50 percent.

“We want our fair share of expenditures,” Connors said. “Ocean County pays the second highest amount in toll revenues, and we don’t have another North-South route outside of Route 9.”

The legislators have a meeting coming up shortly with the Turnpike Authority, at which time these issues will be discussed, Connors said. According to Rumpf, that meeting will be in the next month.

“I want to be a part of that meeting,” Galloway Township Mayor Don Purdy said. “We’ve told them our concerns … and the official letter we received said the Turnpike Authority doesn’t deal with townships. That’s not acceptable. The highway does run through our town.”

The legislators said the mayor will be included when the meeting is scheduled.

Tuesday night’s event was scheduled to give the legislators another chance to meet Galloway and Port Republic residents in a non-election year. Galloway was into District 9 last year after spending multiple years in District 2.

“You’re going to see us more than the rest of our constituents because we’re trying to prove ourselves to you,” Rumpf said.  

The legislators have already been to council meetings in both towns, as well as the and in Galloway.

On Tuesday night, the legislators were asked about Gov. Chris Christie’s 10 percent income tax cut across the board, which, according to Galloway Township Democratic Chair Mike Suleiman, results in rebates of far less savings for someone making $50,000 a year than someone making $1 million.

“It’s bad math and a bad policy for the middle class,” Suleiman said.

“New Jersey is 49th in taxation right now, but that’s going to come up with the 10 percent tax rebate,” Rumpf said. “We can’t tax away our millionaires because they’ll just end up in another state. Right now, we have the top half of the top 1 percent paying 50 percent of the taxes. It’s easy to say tax the rich, but there’s a reason we don’t.”