Christie: Camden should run itself
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
By: Fit Staff
mcampbell@whyy.org
By Phil Gregory
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New Jersey's next Governor says state control of Camden has been a failure. As a financially distressed city in 2002, the state began supervising the city's operations and at the same time provided additional funding. Governor-elect Chris Christie wants that to end.
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Christie says he'd like to return control of Camden to the city as quickly as possible.
Christie: I believe that state control of Camden by and large has been a failure and that we need now to move forward to a time when the people that Camden elect and they just elected Senator Redd as the mayor. I think she should have the opportunity to run the city and make the decisions the people elected her.
Christie says he won't impose a solution. He wants to meet with Mayor-elect Redd to talk about what she believes would a realistic timetable to return control to the city. Christie says some statutory requirements of the Camden recovery bill may require the state to maintain control for a while longer.
I propose a resolution to change the County Seat from Camden City to Cherry Hill. Cherry Hill has been a very successful town and have all the necessary requierments to become the County Seat.
Camden City has always had a problem financialy and has never been able to effectively prosper. I believe Cherry Hill has a better chance at being in control of the government.