Categorized | Letters to the Editor

THE COMMUNITY VOICE: Letters to the Editor

Can Consolidation Cure High Property Taxes?

There is an old saying “if it sounds too good to be true, it isn’t”. That’s because the proposal does not list its disadvantages, and most policies have trade-offs. The claim that consolidation of municipalities would result in “lower property taxes and improved services” sounds false, like a character in the novel “It Can’t Happen Here”. Consolidation can only work if one city has an excess capacity of some quality and the other city is lacking in this quality. Or there must be a downsizing to reduce costs, and this can be done without consolidation.

The 565 municipalities for 21 counties and 8 million people was not a problem with the 1844 state constitution. The high property taxes in NJ are the result of two facts: the high population density, and, the lack of democracy. In other places the bigger the city the higher its property taxes. In 1968 the state of New York raised its sales tax from 4% to 6% but split it equally between the state and each county. Why can’t NJ allow each municipality to get the first 1% of the sales tax and the first 1% of the income tax?

One person’s vote in a city of 30,000 has more effect that a vote in a city of 300,000. The working definition of democracy is “local control”. The reason a township could split into multiple municipalities is to allow each city to set its own priorities.

Has anyone calculated the advantages of consolidation with Pennsylvania to eliminate the high costs of NJ state government? Would that result in “lower property taxes and improved services”?

Ronald A. Sobieraj

Cancer Control Intervention, Prevention and Early Detection

A grant from Amerigroup Foundation to the American Cancer Society’s CHANGE Grant program has had a positive impact on underserved communities in Perth Amboy.  Through this grant funding opportunity, ACS partnered with Jewish Renaissance Medical Center to address the unequal burden of breast cancer among by providing education on the importance of early detection and screening   among Latino and African American women.

Since 2011, the American Cancer Society has awarded 524 CHANGE (Community Health Advocates implementing Nationwide Grants for Empowerment and Equity) grants equaling $23.7 million to community health system partners to reach communities experiencing a higher burden of cancer by providing outreach, education, screening navigation and access to no- or low-cost cancer screening exams. Through the grant-funded work, grant recipients have collectively provided more than 2.4 million outreach and education interventions, and contributed to more than 795,000 breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screenings provided at low or no cost.

New Jersey has one of the highest cancer rates in the country, with breast cancer being one of the main culprits. The focus of the grant was to educate, screen, and, if needed, navigate patients to mammogram appointments and breast surgical consultations. This work would not have been possible without the generosity of Amerigroup Foundation.

One success story resulting from the partnership is that of a 55-year-old African American woman, initially seen in 2014 for a new gynecological visit. The clinic referred her for a mammogram, but the patient didn’t get screened. She returned in February 2015 and once again, a mammogram was ordered. This time, she got one and it came back abnormal. The patient said she had no intention of following up due to fear. The patient navigator continued to educate the patient and worked through this barrier. The patient is now undergoing treatment and her most recent biopsy has not detected cancer cells. If the patient navigator had not followed up with the woman and convinced her of the importance of follow up and treatment, this story could have had a very different outcome.

The American Cancer Society is committed to addressing the unequal burden of cancer by reaching individuals in underserved communities in collaboration with community partners like Amerigroup Foundation. Together, we strive to promote health equity and ensure equal access to cancer education and screenings for all individuals.

Thanks to the generous funding of the Amerigroup Foundation, we, along with Jewish Renaissance Medical Center, were able to address the unequal burden of cancer by reaching individuals in underserved communities.

Dr. Durado Brooks,

Managing Director,

Cancer Control Intervention, Prevention

and Early Detection for the American Cancer Society

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