newjerseynewsroom.com

BY STEVEN LONEGAN

COMMENTARY

The state Treasurer recently reported that New Jersey's revenue collections through the first three months of the new fiscal year were $190 million less than anticipated. This has set off a wave of panic in Trenton, with calls for job and health-benefit cuts for state employees.

It's easy to understand this reaction, New Jersey's debt has climbed to $44.6 billion — a 1,000 percent rise from just a few years ago — and the state faces a budget shortfall next year of between $8 billion and $10 billion.

On Nov. 3, voters in New Jersey will be asked to vote on Ballot Question No. 1. If passed, this will allow the state to go another $400 million in debt for money to pay for the so-called "Green Acres" program. This is on top of the more than $2 billion the state has already borrowed to fund the program.

Imagine if we ran our households or businesses that way. We are in debt and our revenues are not keeping up with our expenses. Time to cut back on non-essentials? Heck, no, let's take the last un-maxed credit card and max it out!

The principal objection to the proposal's new borrowing is this: It is patently irresponsible to borrow $400 million more when the state is already $44.6 billion in debt and in the worst economic situation since the Great Depression.

With an $8 billion hole in the budget, what happens if the state can't make the payments? Will this borrowing mean cuts in services, state park closures, job cuts and higher taxes?

Two years ago, the same Trenton insiders said we had an "open space" crisis. They told us that we needed to borrow $200 million to fund the Green Acres program. Voters gave them the benefit of the doubt and passed the bond referendum allowing it. What did they do with the money?

Well, they cut $47 million out of it to send to mostly urban areas to be used for the construction of recreation projects. It's called Green Acres, but there's nothing "green" about spending millions of taxpayers' dollars to cover earth with asphalt for parking lots and replace grass with artificial turf. Nothing grows there, nothing lives in it. In fact, one proponent of artificial turf said that it was best because it kept the wildlife away.

Now I'm not arguing that artificial turf and parking lots don't have their place, but that's not what most people think the money is going for. That's one of the reasons that New Jersey's top environmental groups have expressed reservations about this program.

To make matters worse, taxpayer-funded Green Acres fields use an artificial soil made up of ground-up car and truck tires. Environmental studies have expressed concerns over run-off from these fields and the potential pollution hazards.

The presence of lead chromate has caused some local governments to actually close fields to children. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a special advisory last year that discussed the hazards from the dust this artificial soil creates.

And much of the millions borrowed — that we can't afford to borrow — have gone for projects that in no way can be considered green. Handball courts in Camden, a snack bar, water fountains, construction of storage buildings, fencing, lighting, an outdoor adult gym, a skateboard park — an entire golf course in Atlantic County — how do we define this as part of the natural environment?

So a program that started out preserving forests, meadows and farms has — in typical New Jersey fashion — turned into one that takes one of the last plots of green in North Bergen, to turn it into a parking lot. That takes farmland in Burlington County and covers it with polyethylene grass.

Is this the kind of open space taxpayers envisioned when they agreed to borrow millions to spend on this program?

That brings me to the second objection to Ballot Question No. 1: Green Acres has become less concerned with conservation and more concerned with funding the pet projects of local politicians. Starting out as a way to preserve the natural environment, it became corrupted just like so many programs have in New Jersey.

On Nov. 3, the choice for taxpayers is a simple one. Vote no on Ballot Question No. 1. It is non-essential spending at a time when we can't afford it — and it isn't green.

Steven Lonegan, who was a candidate for the Republican nomination for New Jersey Governor in 2005 and 2009, is the state director of Americans for Prosperity, NJ. Contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .