Teterboro only has 18 people?? (Hackensack, Guttenberg: townhouses, public schools, salary)

[Newarkbomb]

Thats all the population is?? can anyone tell me why this is even a town?Shouldnt it be connected to one of it's bordering towns.

its 61% Italian too.

[STrapani1105]

haha, didnt I ask about Teterboro back on the Italian-Americans in Jersey thread?

then that makes it number one in the U.S. of Italian-Americans. i don't think they count it though, because its so small.

but yeah, i checked out the article of Teterboro on Wikipedia and its pretty interesting. check it out.

[pbergen]

there is absolutely no reason for teterboro to be its own municipality, but so far it has resisted all annexation attempts by its neighbors. the borough actually built some new townhouses in the late '90s that tripled its population to around 54 residents (not sure why - maybe the town leaders wanted to legitimize teterboro's independent status by increasing the population?) but it's still way too small.

i'm not sure how teterboro ended up this way. this is purely speculation on my part, but my guess is that the borough was not originally intended to have so few people. according to wikipedia, a racetrack was originally planned for the land that teterboro airport currently sits on, but it never materialized. once the airport became the dominant land use in the borough, there would've been little to no incentive for anyone to move into town due to air and noise pollution, not to mention the risk of a plane crashing into local residences. plus, the borough may have zoned most parcels of land for industrial/commercial uses once the airport started to gain prominence. again, though, i'm just speculating.

in any event, it's pretty clear to me why teterboro refuses to merge with any of its neighbors - the significant tax benefits for its small group of residents. unlike most municipalities that are constantly struggling to find new tax ratables to close the holes in their budgets, teterboro has virtually no services to pay for. there are no public schools that exclusively serve the school-age children of teterboro (while bergen county technical high school is located within borough limits, it is open to all residents of the county), no fire department, and only a handful of local roads. meanwhile, there is the airport and a bunch of industrial/warehouse-type businesses which provide ample tax revenue.

then you consider that the borough has a mayor and five council members - not sure if they receive a salary, but i'd be surprised if they don't. and there's a small police department that has very little to patrol other than the airport and route 46. basically, they have a nice little arrangement for themselves that doesn't seem to be in any imminent danger of being threatened:

"With only 12 residents over the age of eighteen at the time of the 2000 Census, Teterboro has one of the smallest electorates of any municipality in the United States. The four councilpersons and mayor make up nearly half of the voting population by themselves."

in short, teterboro exists because a very small group of people have put their own selfish interests above the good of the region.

i really hope that someday, the state government will finally be successful in forcing the consolidation of smaller municipalities like this with their neighbors.

[STrapani1105]

pbergen, you are a very smart man... or woman. but regardless of gender your posts are freaking awesome and helpful

the stuff you talked about wasn't the stuff i read on Wikipedia. I question Wikipedia's accuracy though.

[Busch Boy]

They are actually very smart. They know their taxes will skyrocket if they let another town annex them. Considering the ridiculous tax amounts that are especially paid in Northeastern NJ, can you blame them?

Although I agree with Pbergen about consolidating all these small municipalities that NJ has in excess.

[joe moving]

Where do the kids go to school? Do they hire out police patrolling from Moonachie or Little Ferry? I do not see anything wrong with the small town in theory. I think a lot of the things that government can get away (poor decisions that are not in the interest of its residents.......) with is due to large size...

[openheads]

Add Guttenberg in Hudson Co to the list. No need for it to be a separate municipality. How about "South Hackensack"?, it's split into two areas that are not even remotely close to each other. Weird.................