EDISON - New Jersey has 564 municipalities and more school districts than that.

There long has been talk of consolidating towns, or at least, merging services - usually during gubernatorial elections. Of course, not much happens.
Whether Steve Fulop can change the state's peculiar devotion to "home rule" - and its negative impact on property taxes - is unknown.

Nonetheless, he went further Monday than most statewide candidates have gone when he talked about ways to force towns to merge.

Fulop and Sheena Collum, his lieutenant governor candidate, highlighted their "affordability" program outside a suburban home just around the corner from where Fulop lived as a child.

They both, a bit sarcastically, referred to mayors who love walking around conferences with a badge that says, "Mayor."

"The reality is that we have to force these people to have a conversation on consolidation," Fulop said.

A cynic may respond that "those people" should be forced to consolidate towns, not just converse about it. But first things first.

Fulop proposed using the state's Local Finance Board to make it harder for towns to bond.

"That is the tool we are going to use to leverage consolidation," he said.

Or in other words, by discouraging municipalities from borrowing money on their own for capital improvements, they would be forced to consider regional solutions.

Fulop also wants to explore mandating that voters approve municipal bond initiatives for major projects, which is the norm with boards of education.

There is no shortage of stories about why regional planning is needed.

Collum offered one of them, and it had to do with flooding.

"The water doesn't give a crap if there is a municipal border," she said.

The political problem is that many of those folks walking around with a "Mayor's" badge are not going to easily give up their power, as relative as it may be. Many residents also seem to like the identity their town gives them regardless of its size.

Fulop said he picked Collum as LG candidate because as mayor of South Orange, she knows about local issues.

She also knows about merging services and downsizing.

Collum said that during her tenure, the town hall was sold and converted into a beer garden. (A better use of property to be sure).

She also pushed through a merger of fire departments with neighboring Maplewood.

So, when it came time to buy a new fire engine, only one was needed, saving a million bucks.

Paraphrasing the famous line attributed to Everitt Dirksen - "A fire truck here, a fire truck there, and pretty soon it's real money."