A short history of Teterboro
Teterboro was incorporated on March 26, 1917, from land that was part of the boroughs of Moonachie, Little Ferry, and Lodi Township. The borough was enlarged on July 5, 1918, by an area annexed from Hasbrouck Heights. The borough was named for Walter C. Teter, a New York investment banker, who purchased the land in 1917 to build a racetrack and developed a 700-acre (280 ha) site, reclaiming marshland and building an airport and an 18-hole golf course. The name Teterboro was changed on April 14, 1937, to Bendix Borough, but reverted to Teterboro Borough on June 1, 1943. In 1951, Vera Martucci became the first woman to be elected mayor of the borough.
Throughout the borough's history, neighboring municipalities, such as Hasbrouck Heights and South Hackensack, have made repeated attempts to dissolve Teterboro, in hopes of absorbing the borough's ratables (the value of land and buildings which are assessed for property taxes), while state legislators have argued that the population is too small for the borough to justify its own existence, though all such attempts have met with failure. In 1966 Vito Albanese and Ned J. Parsekian introduced legislation in the New Jersey General Assembly that would eliminate the borough of Teterboro and divide it up among four adjacent municipalities. In July 2010, a bill was introduced in the New Jersey Legislature in a renewed effort to divide Teterboro among neighboring municipalities. The bill, sponsored by Senator Robert M. Gordon and Assembly members Connie Wagner and Vincent Prieto, stalled in the state Legislature after its introduction, due to opposition from borough officials, residents, business and land owners, and the neighboring municipalities of Moonachie and Hasbrouck Heights. Legislators attempted to include a 20-year tax abatement within the bill to alleviate the concerns of Teterboro business and property owners who were concerned that taxes could spike if the borough was dissolved. The legality of such an abatement was also called into question.
Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Teterboro, New Jersey, revision 1379202325 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.