Mr. Corzine left his audience with one plea, to embrace consolidation and shared services at the local level. He said the state’s population of 8.5 million was about the same as that of New York City, which has one police commissioner and school system instead of hundreds.

“We negotiate 600 times,” he said of costly municipal contracts. “We negotiate against ourselves.

“We don’t need to be New York City. But we need to address the proliferation and fragmentation of the government we have.”

Today’s New York Times.