Paterson: Where they can't manage their finances, so drivers have to pay

The city of Paterson is not doing well. Its fiscal house in disarray, the administration is suggesting a tax levy that the state is questioning, layoffs, furloughs and other measures.

Among those other measures? An aggressive campaign to write more than 30,000 additional traffic tickets over the next few months.

Now the only way to believe this won't be a ticket blitz where drivers are nailed for the most petty of infractions is to believe Paterson has not been doing its job and has been letting more significant traffic safety violations slide. Clearly, they would not say that's the case. So we're left with realizing that because their leaders are fiscally inept part of the solution they seek is to nail drivers to the wall over really dumb things.

How many people are going to be pulled over and ticketed for an air freshener? How many drivers will cough up money for a license plate frame that obscures 3% of the bottom of the letters that say Garden State?

Keep in mind this is the same town whose mayor recently threw a reporter out of his office for questioning him about using city workers and city money to perform private work for him. Private work such as washing a scooter, building book shelves, and installing equipment reportedly for use at his nephew's business.

Way to go, Paterson!

— Jeff Deminski

Paterson: Where they can’t manage their finances, so drivers have to pay