Isn't anyone talking about home rule?

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Since the November election, the state's growing financial problems have bounced onto and off of the front page at The Record of Woodland Park  with the regularity of  desperate, incompetent editors grasping at any bit of sensational news to sell more papers.

Now, two days before Chris Christie takes office as governor, the potential $10 billion budget deficit and what he plans to do about it is all over Page 1, with a huge photo that casts him in the role of "The Thinker." Let's hope he is not just dreaming of his next meal. (Photos: Christie and Governor Corzine, below.)

But despite all this flattering coverage, I could not find any mention of home rule, the archaic system of small-town government that keeps property taxes high and gives birth to the legions of politicians with their hands out. Will Christie order towns to consolidate or regionalize services as a way of cutting the incredibly expensive duplication in 566 town governments and hundreds of boards of education?

It doesn't look like it from what is reported today in The Record, which has been a staunch defender of the home-rule system. In fact, the paper says Christie may make cuts in the Department of Environmental Protection, which, he claims, harms the economy with permit delays and fines. This is a scary reminder of the DEP cuts made by one of his Republican predecessors, Christie Whitman.

The stories do say municipal governments and school boards will "face new pressure from Christie to cut spending" and that the new governor will call "on different levels of government to seriously consider sharing redundant services as an opportunity for property tax relief." But if you are familiar with the baby steps towns in Bergen County have taken to share services, you know Christie is sure to fail unless the state orders these changes.

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And will the new governor be the first in a long time to raise the gasoline tax to fund bridge repair and expand mass transit or will he succumb to the opposition of selfish drivers and the knee-jerk reaction of every newspaper columnist eager to write his political obituary?