PROPOSED BOND ACT INCLUDES $12 MILLION FOR HISTORIC SITES PRESERVATION
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Trenton - (WBGO News 10/27/2009)

New Jersey voters next week will decide the fate of a proposed $400
million bond issue to preserve farmland, open space and historic sites.

12 million dollars would be used to fund Historic Trust grants to preserve
historic places around the Garden State.

John Hatch is President of Preservation New Jersey. He says if the bond
issue is not approved some of those sites could be endangered.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of historic sites that need funding that
without the New Jersey Historic Trust finding will continue to sit and
deteriorate and there is a point of no return where some projects are so
deteriorated that they can not be preserved and that has happened all too
often in this state."

Hatch says these projects will also have an economic stimulus effect.
Adding that preservation projects are labor intensive and generate more
jobs than constructing new buildings.

Opponents of the bond issue say with a projected eight billion dollar
budget deficit, the state can not afford it.

© 10/27/2009 WBGO News