I am Shocked, Shocked to Learn About Jersey Corruption

Silk pointed me to a WSJ blog about how corruption has come to be a way of life in Jersey politics.

This morning, I was listening to NJ 101.5 and one of the callers said, "So, how much did it cost to investigate this? Millions of dollars? And how much, for example, did Peter Cammarano get charged with accepting in kickbacks? $25,000. There's no way such expenditure on the part of the taxpayers is justified - " and then I stopped listening.

Because it's obviously okay to steal, say, $25,000 from the good residents of the state of New Jersey as long as the costs to investigate it are $24,999.99. Obviously, the caller was a lawyer and no doubt a criminal defense lawyer at that. But this is one of many, many reasons why Jersey has always been a hotbed of corruption and always will be.

Another of the reasons why Jersey will continue to be corrupt is the system of municipalities here. The towns around Pleasantville are Lowood, East Lowood, South Lowood, Victoriana, and A River Runs Through It. Each one of these towns, each one of them, has its own:

Police force
School system, including administration
Municipal government including clerks, engineering departments, sanitation departments, etc.
Library systems

Among other things. When I lived in Florida, everything was done on the county system. Orange County is home to towns like Winter Garden, Apopka and Zellwood. When I lived there, there was a county library system, a county police force, a county fire department, and county government. The little towns like Apopka might have had a cop or two that belonged to them and a part-time mayor, but the school systems were all county-based.

The municipal system in Jersey will keep the state from advancing the way it needs to.

I always found it funny that a place so puffed up by the fact that it's next door to New York is so very backward. The people who live here are so entrenched in how they see the world - their very narrow world - that there's no room for improvement, no room for innovation, and certainly no room for sweeping reform, especially if it means that Uncle Brian can't offer Our Timmy a job as his clerk this summer.

The WSJ blog is right again in saying there's no hard media in the state. When I moved here in 1980, there were no town newspapers. The Newark Star-Ledger had to suffice for the entire state. For media, we had either Philadelphia or New York. No one covered New Jersey. Gannett Newspapers made great inroads for awhile, but hasn't lasted into the digital age. Now it's all about recipes and high school sports.

Jersey is not going to change. Too many people have too much invested in keeping the current system the way it is. Whether it's retiring from the Lowood Police Department at 50 and then getting hired by the mayor as a part-time body guard or getting Our Timmy a clerkship with the megalomaniacal mayor of Pleasantville, there are more hands weaving the cloth than cutting the threads.

It's not going to change.

But dang, I wish I'd known about the whole organ thing. One of my choice kidneys is available for $50,000. Holla.