Court Opinion

ID: 9698482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:51:46.857418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:45.669632
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
dissenting.
To read the learned opinion of the majority, one gathers that we deal here with a majestic imperative of governmental structure: “to guarantee the governmental independence of local authorities, that municipal utilities authorities have and were intended by the Legislature to have independent, broad, and flexible powers to enable them to execute their purposes completely and comprehensively.” Ante at 89. We sense one like Robert Moses being tied down by the New York City Council in his attempts to administer the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority.
Nothing could be further from reality. We have here an authority in word only: a paper creation designed to avoid the municipal spending cap. It has no employees, it has no revenues, it has no offices outside of City Hall. It exists only for its lawyer, a financial officer, and one staff person. The municipality does all of its work (regular street department employees maintain the sewer system) and pays all of its bills. The costs incurred by the authority are paid out of the City’s regular budget from its real property tax receipts.
Yet the majority says that this shadow authority must have the “exclusive power” to exercise contracting with respect to solid waste, else the “soundness and integrity” of its operations will be threatened by lack of “sufficient independence to effectuate [its] statutory purposes.” Ante at 95. How incongruous this seems when the mightiest of authorities, the Port *97Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the New Jersey Highway Authority which operates the Garden State Parkway, each has its minutes subject to approval by the executive authority that created them. N.J.S.A. 32:1-35.92 (Port Authority of New York and and New Jersey); N.J.S.A. 27:23-3(F) (New Jersey Turnpike Authority); N.J.S.A. 27:12B-4 (New Jersey Highway Authority). For other statutes declaring actions taken by an authority to become effective on approval by the Governor within a specified period of time, see New Jersey Building Authority Act, N.J.S.A. 52:18A-78.4(i); New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority Law, N.J.S.A. 5:10 — 4(i); New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority Law, N.J.S.A. 26:21 — 4(i); New Jersey Educational Facilities Authority Law, N.J.S.A. 18A-72A-4(i); New Jersey Economic Development Authority Act, N.J.S.A. 34:lB-4(i).
The general rationale behind such requirements is that
[s]uch scrutiny would in no way impede the activities of the authority nor would it in any way affect the interests of the investors in the authority. It would however result in a greater degree of coordination between the development of authority projects and the needs of the people of this State.
[Sponsor’s Statement No. A. 525, ¿.1973, e. 370, reprinted in Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. New Jersey Highway Auth., 164 N.J.Super. 246, 259 n. 2 (Ch.Div.1978), rev’d, 85 N.J. 277, appeal dismissed, 454 U.S. 804, 102 S.Ct. 76, 70 L.Ed.2d 73 (1981).]
There is nothing in the Municipal and County Utilities Authorities Law, N.J.S.A. 40:14B-1 to -69, that prohibits a municipality from enacting a similar assurance that the authority will act in the public interest. Of course, the Act is to be construed liberally, but I would have thought that a liberal construction would have connoted a flexible construction.
I rather suspect that this matter will be readily resolved at the municipal level dehors the law of municipal authorities. In the meantime, Browning-Ferris, not the taxpayers of the City of Passaic, will be the beneficiary of the Court’s unflinching concern for the “governmental independence of local authorities.”
*98Accordingly, I would reverse the judgments of the courts below and enter judgment in favor of the defendants.
For affirmance — Justices CLIFFORD, POLLACK, HANDLER, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 5.
For reversal — Justice O’HERN — 1.