So maybe not everyone in the New Jersey–New York metropolitan area is enjoying this autumn renaissance, the Jets and Giants sporting winning records at the same time, for the first time since 2015.
Take Jeffrey Lahullier, for instance. He’s the mayor of East Rutherford, the northeast New Jersey borough in which MetLife Stadium lies. In an email response to questions about the windfall of good fortunes that competitive football brings to his borough specifically, he listed a handful of complaints. For one, the state police are assigned to patrol traffic, but he ends up having to put East Rutherford cops on the outer roadways, which is an additional cost not reimbursed to the borough. He’s also still unhappy about the way he was told not to use any NFL signage or logos to promote events in the town back when New Jersey hosted the Super Bowl in 2014. He says he doesn’t really see an influx of overjoyed fans trekking into Rutherford proper and patronizing the restaurants there.
“We may see a spike in our municipal court revenues due to unruly fan activities taking place at the stadium,” he says. “These fines would be directed to our local borough court but not a windfall of revenues by [any] means.” He signed off his email apologizing for “muddying the water.”
