Atlantic City made $1.8 million in interest payments, averting what would have been New Jersey’s first municipal default since the Great Depression as state lawmakers bicker over how to assist the troubled gambling hub, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Mayor Don Guardian, who last week hadn’t decided whether to meet the city’s obligations on tax-exempt debt sold in 2012, said at a press conference that the payment was made yesterday. Guardian said that a default is still possible next month, predicting that the city will be out of money in June. The brush with default underscores the severity of the city’s long-building fiscal crisis and may put pressure on New Jersey lawmakers and Governor Chris Christie to come to its aid. Christie, a Republican, and the Democrat-led legislature this year have been at loggerheads over how to rescue the 39,000-resident seaside town, whose gambling industry has been battered by competition from neighboring states. The impasse showed no signs of easing as Christie told reporters in Trenton that Guardian shouldn’t get praise for a routine municipal act. Guardian supports a rescue plan for the city that’s opposed by the governor.
