Past efforts to consolidate fire services faced a lot of resistance, said Paul J. Feiner, town supervisor, who last proposed a merger 18 years ago.
Tone aside, nobody who understands city politics would argue with his premise that the police union is politically powerful or that efforts to consolidate fire services stir up emotions.
Ms. Levin pointed to $20,000 grants, for instance, that have helped Collingswood and Merchantville, two middle-class communities, preserve their Main Street shopping areas; five Hudson County towns were given another small grant to help consolidate fire department services.
The $8.2 billion budget leans heavily on politically charged cost-saving measures like consolidating police and fire departments, closing mental health clinics, laying off city workers, reducing library hours and increasing some fees.
But now the autonomy of the smallest towns in New Jersey is being threatened as never before, forcing towns to consider everything from consolidating police and fire departments to merging with neighboring small towns.
The official, Larry E. Hamilton, director of the National Office of Fire and Aviation in Boise, Idaho, said the winds could consolidate scattered fires, posing new dangers to communities like those in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, south of Missoula, whose residents have already been evacuated twice.
Egypt has been holding separate talks with Israel and Hamas, and has indicated that it is trying to reach a formula for consolidating the cease-fire by Thursday.
On his first visit to the region in his new role, the envoy, George J. Mitchell, said he discussed with Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, "the critical importance" of consolidating the cease-fire that ended Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas.
If the Kindle Fire consolidates the Android tablet market, smaller Apple developers could well devote their resources to that device exclusively as they seek broader markets.
Previous efforts to consolidate a few fire districts have only created larger bureaucracies that cost taxpayers far more than expected, Mr. Horn said.
