Citywide surveillance cameras. Repairs to the boardwalk. Upgrades to an area freeway.

Gov. Phil Murphy visited Atlantic Metropolis on Monday to spotlight how greater than $60 million in state and federal taxpayer cash is getting used within the seaside resort city as officers proceed efforts to revitalize the native authorities and economic system.

“Each time I come right here, there’s one thing new to see right here and to do,” Murphy stated throughout a public occasion on the metropolis’s public works advanced. “Our job now could be to make sure this progress continues. This metropolis’s success is important to the success of not simply South Jersey, however to make certain, all of New Jersey.”

Murphy has held comparable occasions at varied cities in New Jersey — Camden, Paterson, Passaic — to tout how the state’s new $50.6 funds, the biggest in state historical past, advantages cities and cities. Atlantic Metropolis is notable as a result of it’s thought-about the financial engine of South Jersey and has handled monetary struggles during the last decade due to its oft-troubled on line casino business.

The town is now six years right into a state takeover of the native authorities, which is predicted to final till 2025.

The brand new state funds contains $43 million in direct state help to Atlantic Metropolis — together with $2.15 million to assist fund the native authorities’s day-to-day operations, $2 million for an anti-violence program to assist kids have a protected summer season, and $9 million for infrastructure venture to enhance drainage alongside Route 40.

The state additionally lately allotted $16.6 million in transitional help to the town from the final state funds — together with $5 million to put in surveillance cameras throughout the town to enhance public safety, $3.9 million for public work tasks, $1 million for boardwalk repairs, $1 million to broaden the boardwalk and make it extra accessible to the handicapped, $1.Three million for 2 new hearth engines, $Three million to assist enhance the vitality effectivity of native buildings, and $5 million to assist the town apply for a federal grant to assist management flash flooding.

Murphy referred to as the cash “one other large step in our dedication to getting this group on the trajectory it must be on.”

“Atlantic Metropolis, your finest days are forward of you,” added Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, who additionally leads the state Division of Group Affairs, which oversees the state’s management of the town authorities.

Mayor Marty Small stated the tasks “signify reduction for the taxpayers of Atlantic Metropolis.”

Specifically, Small championed the surveillance cameras, saying it’s the primary time ever there can be such a system all through the town.

Murphy was requested about the specter of a on line casino being in-built New York Metropolis, which might probably take extra guests away from Atlantic Metropolis and thus deprive the town of extra tax income.

“We’ve all the time anticipated New York would have down-state casinos,” the governor stated. “That’s not a shock to us.”

He stated getting the town and its casinos “in the perfect form it may be” will assist Atlantic Metropolis in the long term.

Requested how the cash will assist get Atlantic Metropolis residents out of poverty, Murphy burdened the funds will cowl tasks the town would in any other case must pay for itself, probably having to depend on native tax will increase. He added the tasks will assist make the town safer and cleaner.

“These are all providers which might be important to the group,” he stated.

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Brent Johnson could also be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Observe him at @johnsb01.