Atlantic City, N.J., is in the midst of a financial crisis that has been in the making for years as increased competition and a host of unfortunate spending and hiring decisions have led to a state of affairs that currently features the nation’s highest home foreclosure rate, junk bond credit status and an alarmingly large budget deficit, according to a commentary in today’s Wall Street Journal. More recently, public officials have fought over whether schools should be funded at the expense of shutting down city government, or vice versa, as if either would be an acceptable outcome. How to fix Atlantic City is the question now being bitterly debated at all levels of government in an unusual combination of bipartisanship and acrimony that pits the Republican governor and the Democratic senate president against the Republican mayor and the Democratic assembly speaker, according to the commentary. Gov. Chris Christie proposes a state takeover of nearly all of the city’s operations, including the right to deal directly with municipal employee labor unions, dissolve city agencies and sell off the city’s assets. The mayor, who earlier supported a similar version of the governor’s plan, now opposes it and prefers an alternate plan from the assembly speaker that would allow the city to retain control, at least for now.
