From the Record:
Politicians want flood bond issued
Environmentalists, politicians and flood-weary residents found common ground on the soggy banks of the Passaic River on Wednesday, urging adoption of a $1.75 billion bond through a referendum that would pour more money into the state’s buyout program, Blue Acres.
In the wake of the latest flood, Democrats and Republicans in the state Legislature are pushing to place a bond referendum on the November ballot to restore funding to the Garden State Preservation Trust Fund. The fund is the pool of money New Jersey draws upon to preserve open space, farms and historic sites, and to buy up homes and land in the flood plains around New Jersey.
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The bill calling for the referendum, ACR-10, would dedicate $175 million in annual sales tax revenue over 10 years, beginning in 2009. About $25 million annually would go into the Blue Acres program for flood buyouts. The buyout program would be voluntary and would not involve any condemnation of properties by government, officials said.