Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township

[cranbury liberal]

Will they ever learn?

Once again (it is at least the third or fourth time) the Cranbury Press has used it primary editorial position to advocate that townships and school districts like Cranbury be forced by the State to merge into larger districts supposedly for tax and cost benefits. Let’s be clear – this is not the Press publishing a reader or columnists opinion. This is the official editorial position of the publication – a publication that is allegedly a “home town” paper to a small township that according to its position should be merged out of existence.

Their defense this time, if they bother, will likely be the same as their past excuse – “oh, we didn’t mean Cranbury, of course.” But despite having specifically been called out here for their previous similar editorials, they made absolutely no effort to suggest or even imply that Cranbury is not the target. In fact they do nothing at all to qualify that any small township or district should be excluded from merger mania. Moreover, this is specifically being published in the Cranbury Press. By definition it should be about an issue relevant to Cranbury. If it isn’t, the paper isn’t doing its job. So it is fair to assume that any editorial about an issue relevant to Cranbury is being written with Cranbury in mind.

Putting aside the absurdity of publishing a position in a small hometown paper that effectively calls for the destruction of that home town, the editorial doesn’t even remotely attempt to present any credible facts. They simply glom onto the same faulty assumption, empty of facts, that bigger is better. Of course, the logic goes, fewer municipalities and school districts will mean less “layers of government” and waste.

Wrong. Actually the opposite is true. The largest municipalities and districts in New Jersey are, statistically, the least efficient. Take our taxes and school budget as an example. Every property taxpayer in Cranbury has a portion of their taxes diverted from our community to the county and more to the State. In theory the State uses some of this money to re-distribute it to local school districts and towns. Yet Cranbury receives virtually no such distributions. The largest recipients (by any measure – absolute dollars, percentage of their budget, percentage of cost per student) are the state’s largest districts. So Cranbury citizens completely absorb the costs of our own school district PLUS subsidize larger ones elsewhere in the State. You read that right – these are the facts. How is that possible? Believe it or not, a majority of those districts spend more per student, on average, than we do, despite our achieving blue ribbon status in our district. So by the logic of some state legislatures and apparently the Cranbury Press, they believe they can “benefit” us taxpayers by forcing us to merge with a larger municipality or district that most likely currently spends more per student and per taxpayer to achieve a lesser quality education. Huh?

Here’s the reality – they don’t really expect our taxes to benefit. No, the real benefits are to the larger townships that small districts like Cranbury are merged with, where our more prosperous tax base can be used to further subsidize their budgets. This isn’t really about efficiency or lowering taxes or budgets overall. This is about re-distribution of taxes, per and simple. I encourage anyone to look at the actual FACTS. It is astounding that the Press didn’t bother to before publishing a position that is contrary to the interests of their entire readership.

Shame on them. This is their gift to us in during the holiday? To say we should cease to exist, contrary to all available facts and evidence? Shame.

[Homer]

Consolidation means more government union jobs.

Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me!

[Guest]

I have long ago canceled my subscription to CranburyPress as this forum has more current info anyway.

[Guest]

I find it personally disturbing that Hank is beyond understanding his views expressed in the paper have a direct corelation to the lack of readership in the paper.

When running a paper one has to consider the audience and remember it is a business. Unfortunately, Hank places his view of editorial entitlement above the needs for the paper to have a wide audience. As such, readership declines, but he maintains a forum in which he can continue. It's pandemic of a lot of news papers who are now run by right or left minded people and not by people who are of the understaning that they need to sell papers. Rather they blame outside parties- internet, online-news. The disturbing thing is that the Press has a captive audience in Cranbury since no other news outlet covers us. However, Hank must be of the mind that he'd rather have 100 subsrcibers hear his view than 3,000 and have his contrary views left to his blog. We don't want to hear about Gay Marriage, Consolidation, National health Care in our local paper. We want to hear about the local issues and editorials on such. We can get editorials on these subjects from the dailies if we want.

This by the way is not a Cranbury Press issue, it is an editor issue.

[Guest]

Cranbury Press is not just serving the Cranbury area. If the number of subscribers in Cranbury is less (may be much less) than the subscribers in the other towns combined, why would the paper care so much about Cranbury?

They should have renamed it, and we should support another paper (not likely) or support this forum.

[Guest]

[Elmo]

Elmo says, if you want to share his crayons, stop poking him in the eye with scissors.

[hankenstein]

The Cranbury Press keeps crying about having less space for local articles while Hank is blabbing about international politics. Does he really think Obama is going to pick up the Cranbury Press one day, read Hank's "dispatch" and say "Ah ha! That's what I should do!" Other than Hank, does anyone care what Hank thinks about Afghanistan?

[Guest]

[Guest]

[my view]

I suspect that Hank does not know much about the current affairs of our town. He just does not have anything to write about. He writes what he cares, and we should not expect too much.

I read postings here to get the current affairs of the town.

[Guest]

Except the staff writer Maria is excellent. All Hank would need to do is say- Maria tell me what the stories are in town. Maria- OK Hank here is what's happening. Hank- Thanks. I'll editorialize on this...

[Guest]

Maria is excellent. And smokin' hot, too. Maybe she could host a cable news show about Cranbury.

[Guest]

But Hank DOES know full well that Cranbury is rightfully sensitive to the issue of township and school district mergers and consolidations. He wrote a similar editorial about it before, got slammed here, and personally came on the clarify. That's why there's no way doing another editorial without qualifying whether it applied to Cranbury couldn't be an accident. Not to mention, even an idiot who works at the paper would know Cranbury is a small town, based on the readership if nothing else. So my third grader would have made the connection between "we're saying small towns should be merged into large ones and, uh, we're in a small town."

There's no way this was an accident. If it was, they should fire the person for having an IQ below 50. Or send them back to the second grade.

[Guest]

Maybe they want Cranbury to die so they can spare themselves the embarassment of going out of business.

[stuck in Cranbury]

He probably cannot find a job in a town that suits his view. He is stuck here and unfortunately his view is not aligned with ours.

What's the best way to tell him the Cranbury success story and give him an education?