The home of Thomas Edison should be an innovative leader in protecting our environment and open space. Our town should invest in solar carports on municipal parking lots and consult with neighboring towns about community solar programs which will help drastically lower utility bills. We should revitalize the Environmental Commission to have the ability to work in coordination with the Planning Board as a consult for environmental issues. Development must be done responsibility. We should be opposing the West Essex Highlands proposal and I am deeply concerned about the new proposed housing plan in terms of its ability to answer questions related to environmental protections and flooding. We should be more aggressive in county, state, and federal grant applications and our approach to Green Acres Funding, of which we can use some of the funds to help offset the town’s debt. We should be looking into permeable pavement utilization to reduce stormwater runoff and flooding; We should be willing to explore the viability of a stormwater utility to address increased stormwater runoff and sewage problems while freeing up municipal budget space.
I support doing all we can to support our local small businesses. Expanding the Shop West Orange small business program will incentivize residents to shop locally while seeing a return on their property tax bill. I propose developing a vacant storefront registry on the town website to assist prospective businesses in finding space. We should also aim to become a veteran friendly business municipality like neighboring towns.
We must ensure that our town government is one that is functional, efficient, and works for you. We should have publicly posted deadlines for all government issues to hold our elected officials accountable. I support various measures to improve our local governance, including stronger public bidding for service contracts, We can make council meetings shorter without silencing voices by instituting “In Support/Opposed, No Need to Testify” slips during council meetings AS AN OPTION, just like they do in the State Legislature, to ensure those who want their voices heard but not speak are accounted for. After countless meetings of “We can’t hear you” from residents at council meetings, we should invest in audio upgrades at town hall. I commit to “Council on Your Corner” events to hold monthly neighborhood meetings to hear constituent concerns.
At a budget meeting I attended on July 14th, a town official said, regarding an obligatory budget line item, “that’ll be an issue later on down the line”. That should never be said during a budget workshop. One of the primary responsibilities of a councilmember is the sound stewardship of your tax dollars and the fiduciary trust you lend to those you elect. My vision, if elected to the council, is to implement multi-year budget projections. Our town should have short, mid, and long-term revenue and cost expectations, and clear plans of how we intend to use your tax dollars, not just next year, but into the future. This will help us identify positive and negative trends, ask tough questions, and identify year-to-year cost savings and projected expenditures. This will also help limit the hectic and frantic nature of starting at such high proposed increases and spending months to – rightfully so – work to lessen the burden.
Our budget process should be community-focused, including budget binders for the public, more in-depth resident input during workshops, and weekly updated expenditure reports. I will strive to implement better accounting policies for our expenditures and identify inefficiencies/outdated practices. I also will work to renegotiate the town recycling center contract, where we are not receiving adequate compensation. We should also be attracting ratables and businesses to town, support them so they can thrive, and doing so through the assistance of a strategic town planner.
