In return, the city must prepare a balanced budget for fiscal 2017, which begins January 1, and a five-year recovery plan.
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Christie says he’ll sign the bills Friday after they were approved by lawmakers Thursday following a drawn-out political fight. The expenses offer a $60 million, six-month bridge loan from the state to the city and develop $120 countless payments each year from gambling establishments in lieu of property taxes, a relocation focused on stabilizing the city’s unpredictable, eroded tax base.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday sent Gov. Chris Christie legislation to keep Atlantic City from running out of cash, throwing the financially-strapped resort a life preserver just before the unofficial start to summer this weekend.
But a bond restructuring, which Guardian has said the city will likely pursue, would be considered a default if it includes bondholder impairment, Moody’s said. “We’re coming up to Memorial Day”.
The PILOT would take effect in 2017.
“It’s huge”, Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian, a Republican, said.
The owner of the Meadowlands Racetrack who is proposing to build a casino in East Rutherford, New Jersey, says a referendum to authorize new casinos in the state is Atlantic City’s last chance to survive. “There is plenty ability for them to fix themselves, and that’s what we’re hoping for”, said Sweeney, D-Gloucester.
“It’s certainly better than a fifteen-year takeover”.
Democratic Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto hailed the legislative passage as an improvement over an earlier Senate- and Christie-backed bill that would have provided for an immediate takeover.
“This is a compromise that we have worked out together”, Prieto said.
Unions representing municipal workers oppose a state takeover, which could facilitate concessions to cut city costs but “I don’t know if that would be enough”, Pfeiffer said.
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Proponents of the plan to open the first New Jersey casinos outside of Atlantic City scoff at the raging pessimism, contending the new facilities will benefit the south Jersey resorts and gambling halls because a portion of the revenue earned by the new casinos will be shared with Atlantic City.
