SOMERS POINT - The city joined at least four other municipalities Thursday in what is hoped to be a countywide effort to nullify Atlantic City's $34 million tax appeal settlement with Trump Entertainment, Inc. - or at least an effort to find out exactly how that settlement was approved in the first place.

City Council approved a resolution authorizing a contribution of $664 - "A small amount, but money well spent," said Council President Frank Cosgrove - toward a legal challenge initiated by Buena Vista Township.

The township's mayor, Chuck Chiarello, pushed the idea in his capacity as president of the Atlantic County Mayors Association. So far Somers Point, Absecon, Galloway Township and Buena Borough have added their share of the expected $15,000 in legal costs.

Maneesha Joshi and Anthony Pagano, both assistant county counsels, argued that even if the settlement can't be overturned, the circumstances of the agreement need to be looked into.

"What is the basis of a settlement of this magnitude?" Pagano said. "Is it a true and valid overpayment? No one in Atlantic City has been able to explain. ... Why should taxpayers across the county (have) to eat this settlement amount?"

The county's share of the $34 million comes to $5,093,067, of which Somers Point is responsible for $138,579. The county had tried to start its own appeal, but in December Tax Court Judge Joseph Small ruled that the county is a "pass-through" entity, not a taxing entity, and therefore isn't able to intervene.

Each municipality in the county owes a proportional amount of the settlement, ranging from Egg Harbor Township's share of $466,672 to Corbin City's $5,490. As to Atlantic City's share, the first payment of $12 million in cash was already made in December.

John DiMaria, the only Somers Point councilman to vote against the resolution, asked why more litigation was necessary when it's unlikely the settlement will be overturned.

"With all due respect, we have tax appeals right here in Somers Point," DiMaria said. "Once they're settled, we don't do anything more about it. Why is this one so special? ... I have no love for Trump, trust me. The point is, they have settled something. Who are we?"

Joshi responded that unless the municipalities act now, these types of large settlements will continue.

"How many times are casinos going to do this?" she asked "It's not about setting aside the settlement as much as it's the shifting burden. Did Atlantic City do everything it should have done before shifting the burden back to the municipalities?"

DiMaria, however, was unconvinced.

"I'll be the oddball and say no," DiMaria said. "We in this town have so much litigation, I don't want more if we can help it."

Other council members were more favorable to the idea.

"It'll cost us $600 to double check a $34 million mistake," Carl D'Adamo said. "We're going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb."

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - State Police have confirmed that a man who died in a fire Saturday afternoon committed suicide by arson.

Joaquin Torres, 60, was found in the bedroom of the house on the 700 block of Jackson Road, which firefighters found engulfed by flame shortly after 2 p.m.

State Police Sgt. Steve Jones said a report from the force's arson unit Monday determined that a chemical had been used to start the fire in the kitchen.

"Tests are still going on to confirm what that was, related to several containers around the place," he said.

Torres' death was formally ruled a suicide, according to an autopsy that also was conducted Monday. The cause of his death was smoke inhalation.

His wife, along with their teenage son, was not at the property at the time of the fire, Jones said.

"From what I've heard so far, it sounds like she had moved out the day before," he explained.

Torres' mother-in-law reportedly raised the alarm after receiving a phone call from him that led her to believe he was suicidal, police said.

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - Fallen gutters and charred wooden beams frame the house at the edge of Jackson Road, where a man died Saturday afternoon in a fire police said may have been started as a suicide.

State Police confirmed the identity of the man who died yesterday as Joaquin Torres, 60, who lived at the now-gutted home in the township's Newtonville section.

Police say family and friends have been interviewed to determine whether the fire at 730 Jackson Road may have been started deliberately by Torres. Shortly before the fire is believed to have stated, Torres' mother-in-law allegedly received a phone call from him that alarmed her and suggested he may be suicidal.

State Police Sgt. Steve Jones said that Torres' body was found in a bedroom by firefighters who had put out the blaze. Doors to the home had been barricaded, the fire officers said.

Jones said the State Police arson unit would likely deliver a report today indicating whether there is sufficient evidence that the fire was deliberately started.

"Obviously the primary key would be the use of an accelerant," he said, referring to any substance used to start or speed up the fire. "And we would also want to know whether or not the fire had begun in one place or at multiple places."

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - Authorities are investigating a fire that killed a township man Saturday afternoon as a possible suicide.

At about 2 p.m. Saturday, State Police responded to 730 Jackson Road in the Newtonville section of the township after they received a call from the mother-in-law of a man who lived at that residence, State Police Sgt. Stephen Jones said.

According to Jones, the woman received a "strange" call from her son-in-law that made her believe that he was possibly suicidal and in danger.

Inside the home, authorities found the body of a man they tentatively identified as Joaquin Torres, 60, who lived in the home with his wife and 16-year-old son.

When police arrived, smoke was pouring out of the small, ranch-style home, Jones said.

Police immediately called the fire department and attempted to enter the building, but Jones said the doors to the home appeared to be barricaded.

"The house became fully involved very quickly," Jones said. "The inside of the house was completely gutted."

State Police confirmed that Torres' wife and son were staying in a hotel at the time of the fire. Jones could not confirm whether domestic problems were a factor in the fire.

The State Police's arson unit was still investigating the cause of the fire as of Saturday night, but Jones said authorities were treating it as suspicious.

"And State Police from the Buena Vista barracks are looking into this as a possible suicide, based on a number of things," Jones said.

Torres' body was taken to Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, where an autopsy will be performed Monday, Jones said.

Herb Sykes Sr., assistant chief of the Newtonville Volunteer Fire Company, said seven fire companies and four first aid units responded to the fire, which he said was brought under control quickly.

Brian Murray, the Buena Vista Township Fire Marshal, said it is common for that many fire companies to respond to calls in this section of the township, because there are no hydrants in the area to draw water from.

This is the second major event to shock typically peaceful Newtonville within the past year.

Three men were charged with murder after they allegedly stabbed a Buena Borough man to death on March 23, 2007, near Jackson Road and Ninth Street.

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - Rolling their eyes and sometimes muttering their reluctance, Township Comittee members agreed Monday night to introduce a budget with a tax rate they promised was only theoretical.

The governor's proposed state budget, which slashes aid to many small towns, and two emergency repair projects that need state aid to be completed, forced the committee to propose an increase in the tax rate of 29 cents per $100 of assessed property value.

"We're asking for aid," said Township Solicitor Mark Stein, explaining why the committee had to commit on paper to raising the rate so high. "But if we don't get the money, we don't spend the money, and the rate doesn't go up that high."

Mayor Chuck Chiarello described it as a "three-tier budget."

The first tier was a raise of 9.5 cents. Add to that a 5-cent raise to cover the anticipated loss of $133,000 in state aid that Deputy Mayor Teresa Kelly said might yet be restored.

The remaining 14.5-cent increase was "a bold move by the committee," Chiarello said.

Two emergency improvements were needed to fix a dam along a stretch of Unexpected Road that had been demolished in an April 15 northeaster last year at a cost of $400,000 and to replace crumbling drainage pipes in the Collings Lakes section that would cost $300,000.

Chiarello said the township would apply for extraordinary aid to cover those projects - and to do so, they had to budget on paper as if they would go ahead with or without the handout.

However, he said that was not the case. If the state refused the aid, the projects would have to be scratched.

The budget's introduction was partly spurred by the impending extraordinary-aid deadline of March 24.

Township Committee saw the budget session as a necessary step, albeit one that seemed to some a bit futile.

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - As a man who spent his whole life growing produce from the land, Charlie Bylone was mourned Tuesday with a profusion of flowers.

They adorned the front of the East Vineland Volunteer Fire Company engine that escorted the casket to the front of St. Padre Pio Parish's Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, which is surrounded by the acres of farms that make up East Vineland.

Later, at St. Mary's cemetery, after Marine officers ceremoniously folded the flag from Bylone's coffin and presented it to his widow, Pearl, every mourner placed a long-stemmed rose or carnation on the lid.

In addition to his years as a Marine sergeant, and as a fire commissioner, Bylone, who died Wednesday at the age of 84, figured most prominently as president of the Vineland Produce Auction, a farmers' cooperative that he led for more than 40 years.

His grandson, Peter, highlighted that position in his eulogy, saying it was an extension of Bylone's commitment to his community.

"His capacity to care and desire to help others knew no bounds," he said.

He added that as a child, seeing the warmth with which his grandfather greeted and talked with neighbors, he could only assume that every one of them was a family member.

In that community, where farmers in Vineland, as elsewhere, have faced a tough financial year, Bylone was remembered as a man bursting with ideas on how to modernize agriculture and the auction.

Dan Graiff, who farms in Vineland and Newfield, and was on the auction's board during the late 1990s when Bylone was president, remembered him as the first to mention changing the auction system to electronic and also to find a way of avoiding bringing in 300-pound blocks of ice for cold storage.

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - Mayor Chuck Chiarello said Friday that he was recuperating at home after an operation Wednesday to undo blockages in the arteries of his heart.

He voluntarily checked himself into a hospital in Philadelphia last Thursday after he briefly passed out while attending the governor's budget address in Trenton the previous Tuesday. Exploratory tests revealed he had three blockages around his heart.

He said that a procedure to put in stents, small metal coils to prop open those arteries, at the University of Pennsylvania Presbyterian Medical Center was performed Wednesday morning and had gone well.

"I can already feel a difference," he said.

Throughout his medical leave, Chiarello said, he kept in touch with ongoing discussions among Township Committee members regarding the effects the governor's budget would have on the area.

Deputy Mayor Teresa Kelly attended a meeting this week in Trenton, where she and other municipal heads raised issues regarding the newly proposed cuts in state aid to smaller towns. That proposal, if enacted, would take about $133,000 away from the township's annual aid of about a million dollars.

Although Chiarello said he would take four days of rest before returning to work next week, he said he expects to introduce the township budget at the next meeting. That draft would assume the loss of aid.

The Township Committee meeting planned for Monday will be postponed until the following week, he said, because of the death of Charles Bylone, long-serving former township clerk and president of the Vineland Produce Auction, who died Wednesday at 84.

TRENTON - Woodbine Mayor William Pikolycky was mad. In the hallway outside a gathering of small-town mayors Thursday in Trenton, he recounted how frustrated he was that the state sliced municipal aid to his rural Cape May County municipality by more than 68 percent and then told him to share services with neighboring towns.

"I've been mayor for 18 years," he said. "I have done all that can be done."

More than 400 elected officials from towns with fewer than 10,000 people attended the sometimes-tense three-hour discussion Thursday in Trenton's War Memorial building. Hosted by the state League of Municipalities, top state budgetary officials explained why local aid was dropping by $168.5 million this year.

State officials hope to encourage the smaller municipalities to share services or even merge with larger municipalities. Despite having the nation's highest overall population density, New Jersey is home to 11 municipalities of fewer than 500 people.

Locally they include beach towns such as 230-person Cape May Point, 389-person Harvey Cedars and 408-person West Wildwood.

The budget cuts hit hardest in 184 municipalities with fewer than 5,000 people. They will see all of their Consolidated Municipal Property Tax Relief Act funds eliminated this year. Municipalities with populations of between 5,000 and 10,000 will see slightly more than half their funds reduced, while larger municipalities will see smaller decreases.

Only two municipalities out of the state's 566 will see overall state funding increases: Atlantic County's 1,720-person Estell Manor and 9,681-person Kinnelon Borough in Morris County.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine, in Atlantic City for the grand opening of the Waterfront Tower at Harrah's Atlantic City, did not attend the morning meeting.

Instead he addressed the officials via video, saying the cuts were part of wider state cutbacks.

"The fact is, New Jersey has a government its people cannot afford," he said. He added that the crisis presents the opportunity to share services, eliminate overlapping tasks and renegotiate contracts.

Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Joseph Doria, who stayed throughout the meeting, told officials to talk with their local school officials, who are in line for increased funding through the new school aid formula, about easing the burden on the municipal budget.

But the former Bayonne mayor acknowledged that with these aid cuts, "I would not be happy. I would be extremely unhappy."

Some officials complained they were being unfairly singled out.

"I think the only difference between the big cities and the little towns is the number of voters," Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Vincent Barrella said.

Egg Harbor City Administrator Tom Henshaw said irate residents started calling him at 6 a.m. the day the aid figures were published. He wanted to share services with neighboring municipalities, but the city's civil service rules blocked it from doing so with neighboring towns that do not use the municipal employee system.

Buena Vista Township Deputy Mayor Teresa Kelly said the state should have started its cuts with the better-funded school districts instead of municipalities.

And West Cape May Mayor Pam Kaithern wondered, with just four statutory employees, where to cut.

"There is no fluff in our budget," she said.

State data show cutting funds to smaller municipalities will have a greater effect in this area because southern New Jersey residents are about twice as likely as their neighbors to live in smaller towns.

Across the state, 462,692 people, or 5.3 percent, of the state's 8.7 million residents live in towns with fewer than 5,000 people. Another 1.46 million, or 16.8 percent, live in municipalities of fewer than 10,000 people.

By comparison, about 23.4 percent of Cape May's 97,724 residents live in towns of fewer than 5,000 people. That number climbs to 34.9 percent of municipalities with fewer than 10,000 people.

In the southern Ocean and Burlington counties region, 14.1 and 21.1 percent of 118,552 residents live in municipalities of fewer than 5,000 and 10,000 people, respectively. Those numbers are similar to Cumberland County, which counts 10.1 and 28.4 percent of its 154,823 residents, and Atlantic County, which counts 6.3 and 23.1 percent of its 271,620 people in small towns.

A flurry of announcements from legislators followed Thursday's meeting.

Republican Atlantic County Assemblymen Vince Polistina and John Amodeo said in a statement that the $8 million spent promoting Corzine's toll plan would have been better-spent on aid to towns in their district, which stand to lose a collective $3.3 million.

"Our multimillionaire governor should reimburse the state for the money he wasted on his monetization scheme," the statement said.

Also, Sen. Paul A. Sarlo, D-Bergen, Essex, Passaic, said he wanted to restore the $168.5 million cut in municipal aid. He said he was proud of the education funding, but said it was wrong to simultaneously raise taxes through local aid cuts. In a statement, he said, "It's a shell game on taxpayers that I can't support."

In a separate statement, Assembly Republican budget officer Joseph R. Malone III, R-Burlington, Monmouth, Ocean, Mercer, said before towns see their funding slashed, the governor needs to finish appointing members to the Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission.

Created last year, the commission has never met.

The League of Municipalities plans additional budget meetings, Executive Director Bill Dressel said. The next, for municipalities with more than 10,000 residents, is set for 9 a.m. March 13 at Trenton's War Memorial.

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - Charles Bylone, who headed the Vineland Produce Auction for more than 40 years, died Wednesday of heart failure at 84 years old.

As director of the board that oversaw the produce auctions, one of the largest farmers' cooperatives in the country, while remaining a local farmer, Bylone became a prominent figure in the agricultural community and was founder of the Jersey Fresh Festival, promoting state-grown produce.

Bylone lived in the township, serving as its clerk for 25 years, and took on responsibilities as president and director of the produce auction in 1954, having begun selling his family's eggplants there as a teenager. He finally retired from the cooperative in 2001.

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - Mayor Chuck Chiarello has been admitted to the hospital and will have surgery this week to correct artery blockages around his heart, township officials confirmed Monday.

Chiarello, speaking by phone from the University of Pennsylvania Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia, described how he checked himself in after passing out in the lobby of the state capitol last Tuesday, while he was present to hear the state governor's budget address.

After initial treatment, he requested a transfer to Philadelphia, he said, where he underwent exploratory surgery Friday.

"I have three blockages around my heart," he said.

A procedure is planned for Wednesday morning to clear those, he said.

At Monday's Township Committee meeting, Deputy Mayor Teresa Kelly assumed the chair.

Chiarello, a Democrat who has served since 1995 and is currently a member of the governor's steering committee on financial restructuring and debt reduction, said he could be back at work in time for a municipal budget presentation planned for the township this coming Monday.

BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP - Mayor Chuck Chiarello has been admitted to the hospital and will have surgery this week to correct artery blockages around his heart, township officials confirmed Monday.

Chiarello, speaking by phone from the University of Pennsylvania Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia, described how he checked himself in after passing out in the lobby of the state capitol last Tuesday, while he was present to hear the state governor's budget address.

After initial treatment, he requested a transfer to Philadelphia, he said, where he underwent exploratory surgery Friday.

"I have three blockages around my heart," he said.

A procedure is planned for Wednesday morning to clear those, he said.

At Monday's Township Committee meeting, Deputy Mayor Teresa Kelly assumed the chair.

Chiarello, a Democrat who has served since 1995 and is currently a member of the governor's steering committee on financial restructuring and debt reduction, said he could be back at work in time for a municipal budget presentation planned for the township this coming Monday.