Gov. Chris Christie’s pocket veto of the Atlantic City rescue package landed like a sucker punch at the heart of a town already under siege from a saturation of casinos in the region, the threat of competing casinos in North Jersey, and a looming state takeover to boot. Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian has unleashed a blistering response to Christie’s inaction. He joined NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams.
Williams: You have just finished a meeting with the Assembly speaker now. The Senate president said he is not writing AC any more checks. What did Speaker Prieto say?
Guardian: Well Speaker Prieto said he would like to meet with us. He needs to do his due diligence. He asked for copies of past years’ budgets, full-time employees, the listing of 600 properties that the state owns in Atlantic City that don’t pay tax. He spent an hour listening to us. I told him how frustrating this would be because of the emergency manager and four accountants working in Atlantic City for the last 12 months reporting back to the state once, twice, maybe more every week. We were under the impression that everyone in Trenton knew exactly what was going on in Atlantic City. So, I was surprised he did not have that information.
Williams: The legislation that Gov. Christie pocket vetoed had incorporated Christie’s ideas as well as the city appointed city manager’s recommendations. What happened?
Guardian: I don’t know why the governor would veto his own bill. It certainly was very difficult for us to accept. We’ve been following everything that the emergency manager and the monitor both from the states have been recommending and certainly the funds that were promised to us they’ll be redirected from the casinos were part of our budget as approved and as recommended by the state. For us to be cutting our budget, cutting our staff, doing everything we can to make the cost of doing business in Atlantic City less. We were just shocked that the state would renege on this important legislation.
Williams: Gov. Christie said, and this is a quote, “The fact is they [Atlantic City] spent per citizen almost three times more than the city of Newark spends on it citizens. It doesn’t make sense.” What do you say to that?
Guardian: The information is incorrect. We need to cut cost but he can’t say that we have 39,000 people and that’s the cost of doing business in Atlantic City. We have 40,000 people. More people work in Atlantic City than that live in Atlantic City. It’s rare for us to not have more than 100,000 visitors on a daily basis. You are comparing a budget on 39,000 when you should be comparing on 200,000. Again, this is a budget that we have been cutting and following the guidelines of the state of New Jersey. We just don’t understand if the state has been recommending everything we do financially, how can you say we are mismanaging the budget? What you are saying is the state is mismanaging the Atlantic City budget.
Williams: Why do you think that the state Senate president is recommending a state takeover? Can you prevent it?
Guardian: I don’t know why the state senator or anybody in their right mind would try to take away the constitutional rights of the residents of New Jersey that live in Atlantic City to be able to elect their own officials. This is home rule. This is what our country was founded on. To take away their civil rights is just disgusting. It’s outrageous.
Williams: Well, he’s threatening a full state takeover, your threatening bankruptcy? What happens if you declare bankruptcy?
Guardian: Not threatening. What happens is we don’t have a lot of tools left in our tool kit. I have said it as long as I have been mayor that we will do everything to avoid bankruptcy but bankruptcy’s always on the table. Now that the state has reneged the funding that they’ve promised us, they told us they’d give us, now we are going to have to have an emergency meeting that I will call of city council for the purpose of presenting to the state our plans and our reasoning to file bankruptcy. What makes no sense to us in Atlantic City is that we know that the 35 cities in New Jersey that the state provides the funding for, both cities and for school districts, and they don’t have to provide that level of funding for Atlantic City because we have a casino industry that is ruling to redirect payments that they make to the city.
Williams: Talk to me about fatigue. It’s been stated that Trenton is fatigued.
Guardian: I understand and you’ve heard my comments before. I am 62 years old, I rarely put in less than 80 hours. I am certainly not fatigued about Atlantic City. Atlantic City sent $21 billion, billion dollars to the state of New Jersey for all New Jerseyans and we are not fatigued there, doing our part to be an economic engine in this state. So, if the people that are fatigued in Trenton they need to stand up and be counted then they need to resign because we can find other people that have the interest of New Jersey residents that happen to live in Atlantic City. The idea of being fatigued is an absolutely an incorrect statement.
Williams: So what’s the fix?
Guardian: The fix is going to take a couple of years, not two years. It’s diversifying our economy. So you know the excitement you saw in the last month about Stockton University breaking ground in May for a university campus in Atlantic City, South Jersey Gas’ parent company is bringing a corporate office, Bart Blatstein buying Showboat and we’ll announce shortly his plans to reinvigorate and open up that property, the … company who’ve done miraculous work in New Brunswick getting ready to break ground for 250 units of high end apartments in Atlantic City. That is how we move Atlantic City forward. We need to be all working together. You know I make no mistakes understanding that the boardwalk is being completely rebuilt with our sea wall because of funding from the federal government, because of Sen. Booker and Sen. Menendez and certainly Congressman LoBiondo. They provided $30 million to fix our infrastructure. They’re helping us with the SAFER grant for our firefighters, federal government is there helping the people of Atlantic City. We need the state to be helping us too. We are an economic engine. We want to send money to Trenton. We need a little of it back right now to help us be reborn.
Williams: OK, Mayor Don Guardian thanks for being with us.
Guardian: Thank you so much. Have a great day.