By Richard Johnston
MOUNT OLIVE (3/28/09) –
As the Republicans did exactly what was expected
yesterday in announcing the four incumbent Councilmen
would run again in the June primary election the
Democrats today did exactly what was unexpected in
announcing a full slate of candidates and promising a
hard hitting campaign accusing the Republicans of
“sloth” when it comes to sharing township services
within the township and with neighboring communities.
Jim Buell was the last of four
Democrats elected to the Council four years ago and he
was defeated last year when the Republicans swept back
into office with two new Council members and one of the
Democrats who had converted to being a Republican. At
present all seven Council members are Republicans.
Buell announced he was running
again and that he was running with a strong ticket that
included Richard Escobar who made a good showing when he
ran for mayor against the current mayor, David
Scapicchio, so good in fact that Scapicchio, during a
debate, graciously said publicly that if elected his
administration would include Escobar. That, however,
never materialized.
The other candidates are John
Titus Jr. who lives in Oakwood Village and currently is
the president of the Byram Township Fire Department and
Gary Mahabir of Eagle Rock Village who currently is
working for various Democratic state wide organizations.
Escobar agrees with Buell but
says his campaign will concentrate on criticisms of the
uniformity of the decisions the current council makes.
“I’m planning to campaign on the current decision making
process,” he said, “the process is faulted and it has
been. It appears one person makes the decisions and
everyone else follows suit. There isn’t a sufficient
blend of people on the council to express different view
points so they pretty much vote and act the same way.
Buell said he’s been attending
Council meetings since he left the Council. “And I’ve
offered what I believe are constructive suggestions
concerning sharing services and frankly, all I’ve gotten
is the runaround. At a recent meeting, Bill Sohl, the
township administrator, actually said, ‘I don’t have
time to be looking into that stuff.’
“The big issues in my campaign
are going to be tax increases last year and this year
that I believe could have been prevented and the foot
dragging the mayor and current council members have
taken concerning shared services,” Buell said. “it
really is a shame. You hear so many people really
hurting. Taxes went up 9% last year and going up at
least 11% this year.”
“Every Council member knew
last year while wrestling with last year’s significant
increase that taxes were going to take another big jump
this year and while I believe they are trying to make
significant tax cuts, for some reason that I can’t
explain they seem reluctant to really explore sharing
services, within the township and with other nearby
communities.
“I believe we could start right with the
Board of Education in a cooperative effort to store and
purchase fuel oil in larger tanks. A cooperative effort
would net the town a savings of at least .05 cents a
gallon. The township uses at least 40,000 gallons a
year and the school board uses much more. That would be
a considerable savings. The holdup seems to be a storage
area. I believe the township has enough space that it
owns at the municipal complex and at the school board
administrative offices but no one, to my knowledge, has
ever pursued that.
“The mayor and council
members keep saying they’re working on shared service
projects but I don’t know that they are…They’re
certainly not doing it aggressively. They talk about new
ratables that are coming…two senior adult developments,
the Comb North Landfill site and hopefully these
projects will come, the economy will be coming back,
empty stores will be re-occupied but that could all be
four years away, h said. The mayor and Council should
have anticipated this last year and did much more in the
way of shared services,” he said.
“Another one right in town is
our Municipal Court. The courtroom is used only one day
a week. That’s crazy,” Buell said. “We could share court
services with many surrounding towns.
Another is Animal Control. Randolph, Rockaway
and Dover share animal control services. There’s no
reason why we shouldn’t pursue sharing that service with
other communities.
“We spend $600,000 a year on
police dispatchers and the police chief is rightfully
proud of the township’s very able dispatch service. But,
when he made a budget presentation to the Council it was
obvious he didn’t want to enthusiastically pursue
changing anything with the dispatchers. I don’t think
we’ve ever seriously talked to Netcong about sharing
that service.”
The Fire Marshall is another
one and once again, Netcong seems like a natural. They
presently share our health services and public library.”
Of course, the big one
where I truly believe the mayor and manager dropped the
ball was last year in not working out an arrangement
with Netcong to take over their garbage collection. The
township could have undertaken that with no increase in
personnel or equipment.” “Unfortunately for Mount
Olive, Roxbury moved quicker and smarter, made the
agreement with Netcong and this year saved some $200,000
to offset their taxes.
“The mayor said at the time
Netcong would have been paying $240 a household to have
their garbage collected while it was costing Mount Olive
residents $360 and that’s why they didn’t pursue it. A
question I had was why was it costing $360 per family
here when it could be done in Netcong for $240? It
should have been even cheaper for Mount Olive because we
host the garbage transfer station. It’s located right
here in Mount Olive.
“I could go on and on,” Buell
said in a statement, “and we will in the course of the
campaign but one more area I have to touch on is fleet
maintenance. The budget cost is $700,000 to $800,000.
The Penske Company was the lone bidder on that contract
and everyone seems satisfied with their work but Mount
Olive is providing the garage and work place and is
being charged $47 an hour for their mechanics. To the
best of my knowledge Mount Olive is the only town in the
county that contracts their fleet maintenance out. I
believe we could hire our own mechanics and save an
awful lot of money.
