Thank you for contacting the campaign, Mr. Allen. Please rest assured that Governor Corzine cares as deeply about the environment as you do, and that his record on environmental stewardship and taking progressive action to address climate change puts him well beyond the other candidates in this area. Governor Corzine has a clear vision recognizing that environmental protection and economic development are mutually related goals achieved through strong leadership, sound science and common-sense policies. Protecting New Jersey’s environment has always been – and continues to be – a top priority for him. Protecting our natural resources, controlling and regulating our emissions, and using clean and renewable energy sources are all vital to our sustainability.

Recognizing the challenges we face and the opportunity they represent, he launched New Jersey’s first Energy Master Plan (EMP) since 1991. The EMP provides a roadmap to guide the State toward a responsible energy future with adequate, reliable energy supplies that are both environmentally responsible and competitively priced.

The major challenges to our energy future are increased costs, greenhouse gas emissions, and an increase in the demand for electricity. The EMP requires an overall reduction in energy use by 20% and a reduction in peak demand for electricity by 5,700 MW by 2020. Incentivizing cogeneration and the use of smart grid technologies will help New Jersey reach these important goals.

Under the EMP, we will ensure that 30% of the State’s energy use comes from renewable sources by 2020. We’re reaching that goal by becoming a national leader in solar and offshore wind energy. We have instituted new goals and programs to support the development of nearly 2,000 MW of solar energy and 3,000 MW of offshore wind energy by 2020, making us more energy independent and environmentally responsible.

Today, New Jersey has the second most solar panels installed in the U.S and the most solar panels per square mile in the country. And, we are poised to become the first offshore wind producer in the nation.

While addressing these challenges, the EMP will stimulate a nearly $33 billion investment into the State’s energy infrastructure, create more than 20,000 new green collar jobs, save consumers nearly $30 billion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity and heating fuel sectors to 23% below 1990 levels.

This 21st century energy plan will require us to invest in a workforce with 21st century skills, and we will grow our clean energy industry through the development of green collar job training programs and support for public and private research efforts.

Governor Corzine has also championed legislation providing schools, municipalities and counties with the necessary contracting tools to make energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements, and signed legislation providing rebates to new cogeneration projects in New Jersey. He has also budgeted $1.2 billion over the next four years to the Clean Energy Program to support energy efficiency and renewable energy in New Jersey. Additionally, under his leadership, New Jersey is also leveraging approximately $267 million in federal funds from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act to further our energy agenda, including efficiency improvements for low-income households and renewable energy projects for businesses and homeowners.

Understanding that we all share a responsibility to protect our world, Governor Corzine has been working to make New Jersey a national leader in reducing emissions. Making us only the 3rd state to make greenhouse gas reduction goals law, he enacted the Global Warming Response Act, requiring a reduction in carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80% below the 2006 level by 2050.

We’ve also taken a leadership role in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the first mandatory market-based “cap & trade” program in the U.S. to reduce carbon emissions, serving as a model for what we could achieve nationwide.

While working on all of these forward-looking measures, Governor Corzine hasn’t lost sight of our shared conservation goals. Since taking office, he has worked to acquire and protect sensitive open spaces, and he has upgraded nearly 700 miles of waterways and 1,300 acres of reservoirs to the State’s highest level of water-quality protection (C1). He’s also protected sensitive areas like the Highlands, which provide drinking water to most New Jerseyans.

To ensure that all of these initiatives move efficiently and that we can ensure that we’re growing in a responsible way, he modernized and streamlined the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). He created a new Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities to coordinate efficient and sustainable development with green planning policies.

He also created the Permit Efficiency Task Force to conduct a comprehensive analysis of DEP permitting. The DEP is currently implementing its numerous recommendations, including a new electronic permitting service. Under Governor Corzine, DEP has also placed a greater emphasis on stakeholder input in its policymaking, leading to greater predictability in permitting. These measures result in savings in time and money for businesses, and we’ve taken steps to make these reforms permanent.

Our current and new green policies are helping stimulate our economy in conjunction with our other efforts to reduce the impact of the recession. While there’s still work to do, the sound policies Governor Corzine has implemented have made New Jersey a national leader in green economic development. We have the resources, know-how, and drive to push New Jersey forward, and he is committed to keep ensuring that our Garden State keeps advancing economically while embracing policies that protect the world in which we all live. Thanks again for contacting the campaign, Mr. Allen, and we hope that this helps to address your concerns.

Team Corzine

My Message follows.
I am a life-long Democrat and have been planning to vote for Jon Corzine. I also planned to put his signs out in my township, where there are almost none now.

I received a message from NJEF this morning that greatly troubles me. It says that they are supporting Chris Christie and states the reaons.

Slowing climate change and protecting the environment are my first priorities, and I am very disturbed by what I read in the NJEF message. The Corzine campaign needs to respond to this message quickly and show that Jon Corzine also places high priority on these things. If not, he will risk losing my vote and those of many others.

Bill Allen (908-766-2876) 10-09-09

To: Mayor and Members of Township Committee
Subject: Highlands Plan and COAH Filing

This letter is submitted on behalf of some members of the Democratic Municipal Committee, who believe that Bernards should participate in the Highlands planning process and take the initial steps to “opt in” to the Highlands Regional Master Plan. We understand “opt in” to mean that Bernards will file a notice of intent and will then work with the Council to bring its master plan and ordinances into conformance with the Highlands plan. Our argument follows.

ONE: The Highlands Act of 2004, and the Regional Master Plan that it will produce, represent a victory of those, who believe we must preserve natural resources for the use of future generations, over those, who give first priority to development. The first article in the preamble of the model resolution sent to you by Highlands Council Exec. Dir. Eileen Swan states:

Whereas, the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act … finds and declares that protection of the New Jersey Highlands is an issue of State level importance because of its vital link to the future of the State’s drinking water supplies and other key natural resources…

Bernards Township lies within the region covered by the act. As responsible citizens of the region and of the state, we should participate in the planning process and work to meet the objectives of the act.

 TWO: Bernards has an obligation to provide for its fair share of affordable housing. The Council on Affordable Housing [COAH] has determined the Bernards “third round” allocation, and Bernards must file a plan that provides for this quantity. Township professionals have developed a plan, the Planning Board discussed and endorsed it on December 16, and you plan to endorse it by Resolution 080530 that is on your agenda for December 23.

Affordable housing in New Jersey has a long and complex legal history. But it is fair to state that the quantity of housing that must be provided, and the manner in which this will be done, are still unsettled. Towns like Bernards must expect to be challenged by developers to provide more housing. The current recession may delay these challenges, but they will come.

If Bernards opts in and brings its master plan and ordinances into conformance with the Highlands plan, then there will be a strong legal presumption of their validity in legal challenges to our zoning. If Bernards does not opt in, then there will be no presumption of validity. Bernards will then be a tempting target, particularly if most of our neighbors in the planning region do opt in.

When he spoke to you on December 9, Frank Banisch chose his words carefully. But they do support what we say above.

THREE: We recommend that you file the notice of intent spelled out in the model resolution sent to you by the Highlands Council. John Malay said on December 9 that he could see no downside from doing this. We don’t see any either.

The final article in the preamble for the model resolution states:

Whereas, the [name of governing body] believes it is in the best interest of the [name of town] to conform to the Regional Master Plan.

Scott Spitzer suggested that it would be unethical for the Township Committee to endorse this statement if a majority of the members do not believe it. With the facts available now, you have no reason to not believe it. [Some additional pros and cons are in FOUR below.]

If you file the notice of intent and proceed with the work to conform to the Highlands plan, you may discover reasons for not conforming and then opt out. Language in the second resolve provides for this:

 … this Notice of Intent is not binding with respect to lands within the Planning Area.

This applies to Bernards, which is entirely in the Planning Area. If, during the conformance process, you find sufficient reasons for opting out of the process, you may do so. Bernards will then not be included in the Highlands Regional Master Plan.

FOUR: Peter Messina has suggested that the costs for revising our master plan and ordinances for conformance with the Highlands plan will be high. The Highlands Council has an active grants program that will help in some of this work. When known, the net cost to the township for conformance, is one of the factors that should be considered in the decision to complete the work and conform, or not to do this. You don’t know these costs yet.

He also suggested that the Highlands Council will meddle too much in local land use decisions after you conform to the plan. This is speculation. Why would the Council want to do this? If Bernards agrees to work within the regulations of the Highlands plan, and if it has competent staff and land use boards, then there is no justification for micromanagement by the Council. I doubt that it will have the resources to micromanage what happens in each town. You can learn more about their plans for this during the conformance process.

 The Highlands Act holds out the potential for the transfer of development rights from towns in the Preservation Area to towns in the Planning Area. However, it explicitly states that a decision by a town in the Planning Area to accept more development will be voluntary. If, during the conformance process, Bernards is pressured to accept more development then it wants, then it may opt out.

If there is insufficient acceptance of more development in the Planning Area, then there probably will be pressure from the development community to change the law in some way. No one can be sure now what will happen. But a law to require more development will probably be harder on towns that are outside the Highlands Regional Master Plan, than on those that are inside the plan.

FIVE: We recommend that you file the notice of intent to opt in with the Highlands Council, and that you not file the affordable housing plan with COAH at this time. Instead, send a notice to COAH that you have filed the letter of intent with the Highlands Council, and request the one-year extension of time to file with COAH that has been authorized.

Letter written by: Bill Allen, 44 Holmesbrook Rd

Endorsed by:
Jonathan Cloud, 8 Revere Dr
Victoria Zelin, 8 Revere Dr
Caroline Roi, 108 Old Farm Rd
Paul and Jayne Heckles, 15 Tamarisk Ct
Dorothy Schleifer, 112 Manchester Dr

Talk about the quality of communication! Instead of just having a civilized conversation, there is a sort of magisterial behavior that reminds one of the court in Alice in Wonderland. When one of our members asked why they could not speak at the time scheduled for public comment, she was told that the Committee could just change the rules whenever it wanted to. No wonder there’s so little room for them to listen to anyone else, to hear anything except each other’s exalted opinions.

Earlier in the evening, the Democratic meeting had heard an hour-long presentation from Elliott Ruga and Mark Zakutansky of the Highlands Coalition about the benefits of opting into the Regional Master Plan. Virtually everything that the Township Committee apparently believes about the Highlands option appears to be false. It’s true that the Highlands Council is trying to coax the towns within the Planning Area to opt into the Plan by deferring their COAH obligation for a year, and potentially relieving them of any obligation whatsoever. But the environmental urgency of protecting the Highlands from further depletion of its aquifers, which supply water to 5.4 million people, is equally real.

If the township is not going to indicate a non-binding “intent to opt-in,” then it must file its COAH plan by December 31. This presumes that it has a COAH plan. If so, we’d like to hear about it. We think the town was simply trying to avoid its fair share by filing a law suit, and has been trying to concoct improbable schemes to “meet” its obligations; when it reality it could use the Highlands Preservation Act as a shield against virtually all further development, and turn its attention instead to remediating the ecosystem on which everyone depends. “Suburbia,” as we know it today, is completely unsustainable. We need to reorganize ourselves and our communities around fundamentally different principles, and the Highlands Plan represents one element of this.

The Township Committee, however, seems driven by very short term and short-sighted thinking. It’s not clear that it has a real vision, or that it is at all interested in engaging its citizens in the processes of self-government. Instead, most of the decisions appear to be made behind the scenes, obscurely recorded, and enacted in a haphazard manner. But since there’s not much for our affluent and inattentive residents to care about, the Committee can do pretty much whatever it wants – it can make up its own rules – as long as it does not arouse public opinion. But if public opinion cares at all about both the environment and fairness – which it does – it is at some point going to take notice of the fact that its government is going in the wrong direction, and insist that it change course.

- Jonathan Cloud, December 17, 2008

Here’s some background on the issue, and an invitation to join us for this discussion:

On November 11 the Bernards Township Committee voted to not start a year long review of the merits of “opting in” to the Highlands Regional Master Plan [RMP]. If the committee changes its mind and votes to start the review, the township may at the end of 2009 opt in or not. There will be no obligation either way. But the committee must act before December 31 of this year to start the process.

Bernards has a history of go-it-alone thinking and this decision fits the pattern. Some of us expect that more good will come from participating in the Highlands RMP than not, and that a thorough review should be made. The committee’s decision on November 11 was made on the basis of some questionable assertions of by the township engineer, and without adequate consideration of long term outcomes. [See article in the Bernardsville News on November 20 ]

Julia Somers, Exec Dir of the NJ Highlands Coalition, a non-governmental organization that supports the RMP, will make a presentation at the regular meeting of the Bernards Democratic Municipal Committee on December 17. Please come and learn more about this important subject. Then let the Township Committee know what you want them to do.

Bill Allen, November 30, 2008

We would also like your help in publicizing this event. We believe this issue is of interest to all residents regardless of political persuasion, and we are opening the meeting to everyone. Please help us spread the word, and get a good cross-section of our citizens to attend.

Should the administration move first on health care, or on the environment, or on housing, or on the economy? Clearly the answer is that it has to do all of these. The question most often asked in the media, though, is how to pay for it.

In some ways this is a strange question, because it is the government that issues the means to pay for things in the first place. But we maintain the polite fiction that it is run like a household, and really ought to balance its budget (except when it shouldn’t). Underneath this is the fear that government will continue to issue money until it causes inflation, and we’ll all be pushing around wheelbarrows of worthless dollars.

Of course this is nonsense.

If the money that the government prints it uses to invest in infrastructure, in science, in health care, and in addressing the challenges of climate change, it strengthens rather than weakens society and the economy. Spending more money means creating new jobs, putting America back to work (and most importantly back to productive work that does not harm but rather restores the global ecosystem), unleashing creativity, and engaging passion. In this context, balancing the federal budget becomes again an interesting challenge, a long-term goal, based on growing the economy. This economic growth must however be based on the principles of sustainability; we need to make a shift from an extractive economy to a renewable, self-sustaining one. The issue is not whether or not to spend money; the issue is where to spend it, to get the most sustainable growth per dollar invested. And we need to think in terms of the long-term return on investment as well, to see this investment as being on behalf of all future generations as well as our own.

This also implies, to some degree, a new approach to economics. It is more than life-cycle costing, valuing environmental services, and incorporating such externalities as greenhouse gas emissions, though it includes all of these. It must be rethought based on the presupposition that the the goal of the economy is to accelerate fairly-distributed abundance, and not simply to increase the already highly concentrated wealth that exists today. And even the wealthy will gladly pay for a return to economic growth and prosperity.

The role of government, then, is help organize people productively and profitably to produce that which is in the society’s long-term best interest. By assisting and supporting the development of sustainable communities, businesses, and families, government fulfills a role that can be embraced by liberals and conservatives alike, that puts the economy at the service of its citizens and inspires them to create more wealth, by creating more value, more innovation, and more self-sufficiency.

(First posted at http://jonathancloud.com/?p=56, November 13, 2008.)

The number of Democrats in Bernards Township doubled this year, as voters turned out in droves to vote in the February presidential primary. Turnout for the June 3 primary was of course much lower, but just as significant: we wrote in two candidates for Bernards Township Committee, Bill Allen and Bill Kimzey, and elected nearly 40 district representatives – who in turn helped put in place a new county organization to help us win in this year’s critical elections. Peg Schaffer and Zenon Christodoulou are the new chair and vice-chair respectively, and they are bringing together party representatives across all of Somerset County’s 21 towns.

• For the latest updates on the local campaign, go to KimzeyAllen2008.org.
• To view a calendar of local Democratic events, go here.
• To see the latest news, and post your comments, go here
• To join the Bernards Township Young Voters site, go here.

Stay tuned for more updates and links to more sites and tools. If you’d like to get involved, please email us at jcloud@bernardsdemocrats.org to be added to our mailing list.