PAY-TO-PLAY BANS....Don't let local efforts die

Last spring, Ocean City passed a pay-to-play ban that was not only the strictest in Cape May County ? it ranked among the strictest in the state.

To its credit, City Council dutifully scrutinized its ordinance for potential loopholes and closed them. One councilmember suggested allowing small, $100 contributions from professionals seeking no-bid con-tracts; the majority said no.

Like 51 other towns and counties in New Jersey, Ocean City wisely responded to the growing public disgust for the practice known as "pay to play" ? that is, professionals and other government contractors who make donations and then receive hefty government contracts from the same people they helped put in office. It's a practice ripe for unethical behavior, one that breeds public cynicism and inflates the cost of local government.

In some towns, like Berkeley Township in Ocean County, the payto-play ban came as the result of a petition drive.

Talk about democracy in action. But all this grassroots effort to bring greater integrity to the system will be invalidated next January, when a new, much weaker, state pay-to-play ban becomes effective. It will be invalidated, that is, unless the state Senate passes a bill that would permit municipalities and counties to enact pay-to-play bans that are stricter than the state law. The Assembly passed the bill, but it is stalled in the Senate.

That's outrageous. This is a nobrainer of a bill that should have been passed before the summer recess. And it should be at the top of the agenda when the Senate reconvenes.

New Jersey Common Cause, which has pushed for pay-toplay reform and provided model ordinances for communities, divides local ordinances into those that are as strong as the Common Cause model and those that are weaker.

According to Common Cause, the flaw of the weaker ordinances often is that they do not apply to contributions on the county level ? such as, for example, bans
passed by Cape May, Barnegat and Stafford Township. Others, like Vineland's, exempt con-tracts that are bid.

Still, all of the 52 municipal and county ordinances, according to Common Cause, are stronger than the loosely worded and loophole-ridden state law.

The state Senate must restore the power of local governments which are closest to the
citizenry to react to the public's desire for more ethical government. There can be no excuse for failing to pass this bill in the fall.

Pay-to-play bans
This shows southern New Jersey governments that have adopted payto-play bans.

Laws that meet the Common Cause model:

Manchester Township Ocean County
Berkeley Township Ocean County
Ocean City Cape May County

Weaker measures:

Cape May Cape May County
Lower Township Cape May County
Vineland Cumberland County
Cumberland County
Stafford Township Ocean County
Long Beach Township Ocean County
Dover Township/

Toms River Ocean County
Barnegat Township Ocean County
Little Egg Harbor Township Ocean County