Taking the Black River Fields practice fields offline for at least a year will have a big impact on our broader recreation sports schedule. Fortunately, we prepared for this disruption and have found new "homes" for Chester-Mendham Lacrosse, Morris Rugby, West Morris Soccer, and other impacted teams through this summer. Big thanks to these leagues for their flexibility and to the members of the Parks Committee (seen below, plotting locations at Black River) who managed these scheduling changes.
At our late-April Council meeting, we spent a good amount of time discussing additional approaches for removing ash trees in the Township, nearly all of which are expected to die as a result of the emerald ash borer beetle. It's something we started working on four years ago, when we began taking down ash trees in and around parking lots in the parks (years one and two), near playing fields and along parks' property lines near private homes (years two and three), and deeper into parks along popular trails (year four). Still outstanding are thousands of ash trees in the "right of way" (the part of your property that abuts the road), which are the homeowners' responsibility, but may impact the broader town if the trees take down power lines. We are communicating constantly with JCP&L to take down problematic trees and are working on additional solutions to get these trees down before they become especially dangerous.
Big thanks to Councilman Tim Drag who's been laser-focused on lessening the impact of the beetle's infestation. Click here for the Observer-Tribune's coverage of our Council conversation. Though there is light at the end of the tunnel, New Jersey was and continues to be one of the states hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. In January, after ten long months of personal and commercial restrictions, we experienced our highest weekly case totals since the pandemic began, an auspicious start to the New Year.
The response, meanwhile, has been a mix of individual successes and continued delays. Morris County is showing what success looks like, thanks to the leadership of the Morris County Commissioners who, in partnership with Atlantic Health, quickly opened the Morris County Regional COVID-19 Vaccination Center at the Rockaway Townsquare Mall. This mega site – a bright, modern facility staffed by professionals – is a welcome, tangible sign of progress. And it opened just as many more people became eligible for the vaccine. Now, any New Jerseyan over the age of 65 and those with pre-existing medical conditions join healthcare workers, long term care facility staff and residents, and first responders on the list of those who can access the vaccine. There are, however, still delays in obtaining enough vaccines to administer. While more than 4 million New Jerseyans are now eligible to receive the vaccine, they are competing for fewer than 200,000 available doses – a tremendous disparity that threatens new-found feelings of hope. The solution over the next few weeks is better integration into the healthcare supply chain. This started last week with the availability of vaccines at CVS and Rite Aid pharmacies, but should expand to other New Jersey pharmacies and major healthcare distributors. I encourage our state officials to lean on this healthcare supply chain and existing infrastructure to get communities their needed vaccine doses. These healthcare experts have experience administering mass vaccinations and supporting our communities in times of need. We need more shots directly in the arms of people across Morris County, New Jersey, and the country, and the healthcare supply chain can help us do that. I worked in the Cannon House Office Building for a little while. Lowest guy on the totem pole, but still part of the place. When I’d take the Metro home for the night, I didn’t use the station that was right outside the building. I used the one on the other side of the Capitol Building, just so I could walk through the House tunnels, the Rotunda, and the maze of Senate hallways. I’d stop in the middle of the rotunda, look up at the dome, and just gawk. Every. Single. Night. I’d grip my staff ID – a prized, well-earned “pass” to the halls of power – and just feel the place. In all the time I worked on the Hill, I visited the House floor exactly once, for about ten minutes. Lauren was with me and she can tell you how I practically froze. I was in awe of the Chamber and everything it stood for, everything it had seen. I took a look at those brown leather seats and thought about the sacrifice and hard work it took to earn the right to sit in one of them. It fueled my awe of that austere, symbolic Chamber. So today, when I saw on television a bunch of costumed punks cut the proverbial line – no, crash through and violently destroy the line – to sit in those chairs, having not sacrificed anything but their dignity, my blood boiled. Frankly, it’s still boiling. A disgraceful, unpatriotic display fomented by the truly deranged. The rioters who desecrated the United States Capitol today can’t fathom that building’s history and how infinitesimally they compare. I’m mad as hell, not just as someone who had the privilege to work in this place, but as an American who expects better from those who sit in its seats - both unearned and earned.
It's a New Year and the start of a new term on the Chester Township Council. Lauren and I are so grateful to Assemblywoman Aura Dunn for not only taking time out of New Years Day to administer the oath, but also for so earnestly speaking with our daughters about leadership and so convincingly reminding them that girls (and boys) can do anything they set their mind to.
Note: this was a small event with only family present. We wore masks the entire time, save for these quick photos. We have a new ordinance in town that should make the process for securing a zoning permit more cost-efficient. It reads: if any application [...] is denied by the Zoning Officer, the Applicant and Zoning Officer are to confer and discuss the basis of the denial. If the Applicant amends or corrects any application for the same permit being sought, such re-submission to the Zoning Officer shall not result in the payment of another application fee. The idea here is to foster dialogue and cooperation between residents and the Zoning Office. So give it a try, get your permit applications in, and pursue opportunities to improve your home or property. Check out this excellent video from Turpin Realtors on what makes the Chesters such a unique community in New Jersey. Thank you also to Chester Girl Scout Troop 97372 for visiting Town Hall in pursuit of the Democracy badge. It was a lot of fund fielding questions on bears, playgrounds, voting, taxes, hurt feelings if people don’t vote for you, roadkill, the president, and more bears.
Thank you for placing your trust in me to serve another term on the Chester Township Council. To have earned the votes of so many friends and neighbors is truly humbling. I'm committed to using what I've learned over the last three years to deliver even more for Chester Township residents - in cost savings, quality services, and bold thinking.
If you received your mail-in ballot this week, you might have noticed that I am running for re-election to the Chester Township Council without an opponent. What a difference three years makes!
Despite being unopposed, I'm still running hard on behalf of some terrific running mates. And I still think you deserve a few reasons to affirmatively vote for me. Here's why I'm asking for your vote: Chester Township's financial position is solid. As the Council's liaison to our Finance office for two years, I was proud to:
It was our pleasure to host Senator Tom Kean, Senator Anthony M. Bucco, Assemblywoman Aura Dunn & Freeholder Tayfun Selen for an opportunity to meet and hear from Chester voters. Thanks, everyone, for a fun, safe, and informative evening.
For a campaign season like no other, it was also great to join my Council running-mate Joe DiPaolo, who in his time on the Council has provided extraordinary insights and value. Earlier this week, Moody's Investor Services assigned an Aa1 rating to Chester Township due to what it describes as our "healthy finances, modest leverage, and well above-average resident wealth and income." Moody's went on to say that: "[Chester Township's] management has a history of conservative budgeting as seen in its recent strong financial performance. They have a formal policy to maintain a minimum fund balance of 10%, which they have comfortably exceeded for years."
Thanks to this Aa1 rating, the cost for Chester Township to go out to bond is quite low (particularly in this low interest rate environment) and we are able to responsibly spread out the cost of major capital projects. Observer-Tribune: The Township Council approved a new municipal court administrator during its meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 1. The new court administrator, Ingrid O’Connor, the current deputy court administrator, will take over from Susan Travis who will serve her last day on Thursday, Sept. 17.
O’Connor was approved 5-0 with Mayor Marcia Asdal and Councilmen Tim Drag, Michael Inganamort, Joe Di Paolo and Brian Curley voting in approval. She will earn an annual salary of $75,283. O’Connor was involved in the expansion of the Chester Township court to include Mendham Township a few years back, according to Inganamort who serves as council liaison to the court. “She was integral to the more recent expansion to include Chester Borough,’’ Inganamort stated. “She also has experience in other parts of the township government, including as an assistant to the township administrator and technical assistant to the township construction official.’’ Since the pandemic erupted in March, the court, which is shared among the three municipalities, has been held virtually. During the last court date on Aug. 20, there were 70 cases heard with 67 resolved virtually and the rest were plea by mail. It is presided by Judge Glenn T. Gavan. The new tennis court and pickle ball courts in Chubb Park opened to the public on Friday, July 31st - a full month ahead of schedule. Thanks to our erstwhile Parks Committee for long championing this project. I'm proud to have helped get this project across the finish line and am especially heartened by the enthusiastic response from tennis and pickle ball players alike. Enjoy safely!
Attention Chester businesses!
If you are unable to operate your business indoors due to COVID-19 restrictions, we are now making available Chester Township’s beautiful and spacious parks - enabling you to operate your business outdoors. Apply to use one of our Township parks for business purposes using this form. Some Township Parks that would be suitable for business use are: Chubb Park, Highlands Ridge Park, and Black River Fields Park. Be sure to visit the parks to see first hand how they can best suit your business needs. What a difference three years makes! Back in 2017, we scraped for every vote in competitive primary and general elections. This year, I'm grateful to have been unopposed in the primary, alongside a terrific running-mate in Joe DiPaolo. And then we got great news today. With the Morris County Board of Elections having tabulated all results, we learned that we'll also be unopposed in November. We did not see that one coming! It's an incredible honor to serve on the Council and I'm committed to being out on the campaign trail this fall regardless. Forward! At our meeting this past Tuesday, the Council approved a plan to cancel $513,470.24 in planned purchases and return those dollars to the capital improvement fund, the general capital fund balance, the reserve for open space, and the reserve for debt. The work in coming up with this plan started weeks earlier and involved detailed conversations with our various municipal departments on what projects are and aren't necessary. Highlights of what we canceled include $80,000 that was put aside in 2016 for a new salt bin at the DPW building, $40,000 that was put aside for a new car for town hall use, $100,000 for a bucket truck, and a little more than $90,000 that was left over from paving Old Chester Gladstone Road and Mendham Road. Big thanks to Councilmen Tim Drag and Joe DiPaolo for identifying these equipment savings, in particular. By returning these dollars to their source, we're able to more accurately budget for future projects and, ultimately, tax or borrow less overall.
A quick reminder to please return your completed mail-in ballot today: Tuesday, July 7th. For those who prefer to vote on a provisional ballot, you may do so at the Highlands Ridge Barn on North Road between 6:00am and 8:00pm. There's a lot about this year's election that is different, but here are a few things to keep in mind:
If you've already mailed in your ballot, let us know! We're making a lot of calls but would love to hear from you directly. I'm proud to be running for re-election this year alongside fellow Councilman Joe DiPaolo, a smart guy who's provided tremendous value in his short time on the Council. PS - here's a recent interview I did with the Mendham-Chester Patch. In it, I explain why I'm motivated to continue serving on the Chester Township Council and would be grateful for your vote! For a town that already shares so many services with other towns to streamline government, improve services, or save money (and often all three), we keep finding a way to do more.
Last night the Council approved an agreement to share animal control services with Mendham Township and Mendham Borough. Unlike some other shared service agreements, this one preserves our existing vendor and the services they currently provide. Essentially nothing is changing but the cost, since we're now part of a three-town contract. The savings to Chester Township are approximately $2,000 for the year, so this won't make or break our budget, but it's another successful collaboration that's come out of our Shared Services Working Group. Thanks to Mendham Township Mayor Sarah Neibart for her leadership on this latest agreement and for entrusting Chester Township to administer the Shared Court of Chester Township, Mendham Township, and Chester Borough. Let's also not forget our Working Group's first agreement: sharing DPW equipment across four Morris County towns. Last night, in our first-ever Zoom meeting, the Council voted 4-1 to amend the municipal budget that was introduced on March 3rd and eliminate what was a proposed 2% tax increase. The amended budget, which is described below, was approved by the same margin. I was pleased to join the majority in both of these votes (and, in fact, voted against the budget as introduced last month) to ensure that Chester Township residents will not face a municipal tax increase this year. This is the second straight year in which Chester Township municipal taxes have remained flat. The Top-Line Numbers The Chester Township budget for 2020 is $15,368,751.33, of which $8,669,000.00 is raised through property taxes for municipal purposes. The rest comes from a mix of grants, state aid, and revenues such as building and construction permits and our shared service agreements. Separate and apart from the Chester Township budget are the budgets for the Chester School District (about 42% of your tax bill), the West Morris High School District (about 24% of your tax bill), and Morris County (about 12% of your tax bill), the last of which was recently adopted with no tax increase. The Chester Township budget is about 20% of the total tax bill. The Major Drivers The 2020 municipal budget puts $650,000 into the capital reserve fund to get closer to a pay-as-you-go system for large expenses. This represents the largest one-year contribution to the capital reserve fund in recent memory, following contributions of $550,000 in 2019, $500,000 in 2018, and $400,000 in 2017. The budget also anticipates putting $1.5 million toward paying down debt, following previous payments of $1.3 million and $1.25 million in 2019 and 2018, respectively. This paydown is part of an effort to build cash and reduce debt at the same time, and is continually evaluated based on the Township's financial position. Our pension costs continue to go up, with our exact obligation dictated by the State of New Jersey. Our contribution to the Public Employees Retirement Program (PERS) is $346,115 and our contribution to the Police & Firefighter's Retirement Program (PFRS) is $596,780. Digging Deeper Across municipal departments, thanks to the cooperation of our department heads, we saw responsible decreases at the Department of Public Works, Planning & Zoning, the Tax Collector, and the Tax Assessor. We’re also keeping our Parks budget flat, even though this part of our government is funded by the open space tax (outside of the municipal tax levy). One of the largest departmental decreases was in our municipal court. This is a result of last year’s expansion of our shared court agreement to include not only Mendham Township, but also Chester Borough. After hiring an additional part-time employee to help with the increased case load and also hiring a new judge, the net savings to taxpayers are roughly $18,000 for the year. For better or worse, we saw very little snow this past winter and spent very little on snow removal. These dollars will roll into our emergency reserve at the end of the year, thus obviating the need for further contributions into this fund, which now stands at about 1.5 times the amount we budget for snow removal. Finally, as I’ve done from the start, I asked that my Council salary be reduced and pulled out of the state's Defined Contribution Retirement Program (DCRP). Any part-time or elected individual who makes at least $5,000 from state or local government in New Jersey is automatically enrolled in the DCRP. I purposefully stay under this threshold, thus saving Chester Township the 3.015% retirement match. Tonight Chester Township reorganized its municipal government for 2020. It’s such an honor to serve and I'm especially grateful to my Council colleagues for selecting me to serve as Council President again in 2020. It's going to be a great year!
Greetings from Atlantic City! I'm down here participating in the New Jersey State League of Municipalities convention to get a hands-on feel for the latest technologies and innovations in municipal government. Some highlighted include:
The three-town municipal court we'd been working on the past month (that story here) is now a reality. Starting October 1st, one shared municipal court will serve Chester Township, Mendham Township, and Chester Borough.
Chester Township and Mendham Township had already been sharing the court for nearly two years, and each municipality saw savings as a result. With a third municipality in our agreement, we are excited to create more efficiencies, generate additional savings, and provide an exceptional level of service for all three towns. This is a big shared services win for our communities. Big thanks to our friends in Chester Borough and Mendham Township for their cooperation and mutual trust. I hope you get a chance to pick up today's Observer-Tribune, which provides a detailed update on our work to expand the municipal court we already share with Mendham Township (at a savings of $30,000 per year) to also include Chester Borough. This is important work that not only reduces costs and thus saves taxpayer dollars, but also provides greater efficiencies for our municipal staff and shared Chester Police Department. Click below for the full article.
Tri-court combination takes a step forward One municipal court to serve the Chesters and Mendham Township came a step further to reality at Tuesday’s Township Council meeting. The council unanimously approved a resolution to create a court that would serve three municipalities. Mendham Township is expected to consider the plan next Tuesday. Chester Borough officials said they want to discuss the proposal further before voting on it. The shared municipal court would be convened in Chester Township but each court retains its own identity. It provides for shared court staff including court administrators, prosecutors and security personnel. Along with the added savings, township officials said it is a positive move, especially because the township and borough share a police force. I recently met with Freeholder Steve Shaw, liaison to the county’s road department, and Mayor Marcia Asdal to check on the progress of the North Road paving.
What a difference this project has made already! Big thanks to Freeholder Shaw for seeing this through, and to Councilman Tim Drag for doggedly pursuing it since January. |