ATLANTIC CITY — Battle lines have been drawn as elected officials, local leaders and residents prepare to mount an all-out attack against the referendum to change the city’s form of government.
After remaining mostly silent on a petition effort that began in June to alter the city’s form of government, Atlantic City’s elected officials and civic leaders gathered Monday to formulate a game-plan and rally the community.
“This is a defining moment in all our lives,” Mayor Marty Small Sr. told a standing-room-only crowd during a community meeting at City Hall. “This is not a meeting to say ‘What if?’ This is a meeting to say, ‘Let’s prepare to go to war.’”
More than 100 people, including eight of the nine elected council members and a councilman-elect who will take office next month, attended. Another meeting is planned for 6 p.m. Monday at City Hall.
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“I believe in my heart of hearts — and can’t nobody tell me different — (there) is absolutely no way in hell that we’re going to let this happen, as a group,” Small said, referring to his colleagues on City Council. “It’s either people are for us, or they’re against us. We’re not dealing with the fence-riders.”
Last week, a political action committee called Atlantic City Residents for Good Government submitted a formal petition with 3,033 signatures to the city clerk in support of changing the government from its current mayor-council format to a council-manager format.
The clerk’s office has 20 days to certify the signatures — the petition needed fewer than 1,000 to be valid — and, if accepted, a citywide special election will be held in January.
Bob McDevitt, chairman of the PAC and president of Unite Here Local 54, the casino workers union, said the proposed form of government would create “streamlined, efficient and morally responsible leadership.” McDevitt said the current crop of elected officials in Atlantic City have had “incredibly privileged lives on the backs of the people” and added it was “an insult to the intelligence of the residents” to claim that the exercising of their rights was under attack by the petition effort.
“I’m not surprised that they are scrambling now to address their lackluster performance for the last two decades,” McDevitt said Tuesday.
McDevitt, former state Sen. Ray Lesniak, Resorts Casino Hotel owner Morris Bailey and Resorts CEO/President Mark Giannantonio have all worked, in some capacity, to support the petition. Bailey has contributed more than $126,000 to the PAC, according to filings with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. Labor unions from across the state, including Iron Workers Local 399, the union for which Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Salem, Gloucester, Cumberland, serves as general vice president, have also donated to Atlantic City Residents for Good Government.
Under state law, the petition needed signatures equaling 15% of the voter turnout in the last general election, or 935 registered voters. In order for the referendum results to be valid, at least 30% of the turnout in the last general election, or 1,870 people, must cast ballots.
The Municipal Stabilization and Recovery Act of 2016 — the legislation that placed Atlantic City under state oversight for five years — allows for successful referendum efforts to be treated as advisory, meaning the state agency in charge of the city, the Department of Community Affairs, has the authority to reject a ballot decision regardless of the electorate’s choice.
Lisa Ryan, a spokeswoman for the DCA, said the agency was aware of the submitted petition but declined to comment further.
The petition group is seeking to change the makeup of government to a council-manager form implemented under the 1923 Municipal Manager Law. The change would reduce the number of council members from nine to five and eliminate a directly elected mayor. Under the 1923 council-manager form, nonpartisan elections would be held in May and at-large elected officials would serve four-year terms beginning in July.
Rather than an elected mayor serving as the city’s chief executive, a certified municipal manager would be hired by the governing body to oversee the day-to-day operations of the city, including preparing a budget, negotiating contracts and handling most personnel matters.
A mayor would be selected annually from among the at-large council members and preside over public meetings.
