back to News

Thrive Montclair Slate Looks Outward

April 7 – "Montclair is not an island in the state of New Jersey, yet it often functions as one," says Councilor at Large Ted Mattox, Thrive Montclair's candidate for Mayor. "We must be more active in developing dialogues with other towns, and indeed with representatives in Trenton. How many times has anyone seen any of our district legislators at a town council meeting? How often have councilors invited them? How often have our councilors gone to Trenton to meet with their legislators? To my knowledge, these haven't happened."

The Thrive Montclair slate has vowed to implement ongoing dialogues with legislators, other towns and counties, to share ideas and explore more sharing of services, for innovation and pragmatic cost-cutting. It will participate more actively in the state League of Municipalities, which offers guidance and liaisons with towns having the same interests. It will take advantage of the League of Municipalities' SHARE Program grants to study and implement new joint services.

School funding: The League conducted an extensive study on school funding that could help Montclair evaluate its own schools and hopefully create more realistic budgets. Among the League's recommendations:

>Each school district, in coordination with the Executive County Superintendent and municipalities, needs to conduct a comprehensive analysis on shared service opportunities, privatization and other cost-saving initiatives.

>The Commissioner of Education should exercise the authority to withhold a portion of any district's State aid for lack of effectiveness or efficiency.

Shared services: Gloucester County increased its budget, but the increase reflects providing ambulance service to any interested municipalities and operating a county school for children with disabilities, rather than putting the entire burden on the towns. The county is also looking at consolidating trash collection, municipal courts and tax assessors' offices.

Morris County offered to assume expenses for municipalities sharing services, provided that the cost to all taxpayers was reduced and municipalities could show cost savings that would be returned to property owners. Towns are in the process of implementing this offer.

"We need to take good ideas that have worked for other towns and explore their application for Montclair," says Mattox. "I'm sure that as we reach out, we'll find many that will work for us. But, before we plunge ahead with programs and projects that residents just don't want, we'll present the pros and cons to the community at large for debate."

"We just cannot judge how successful we are as a town, unless we have other towns to compare with," he says. "We cannot continue to hold council and Board of Education meetings where we congratulate ourselves on the jobs we're doing, while we have nothing to compare with ourselves."

He cites a Star Ledger editorial from 2006, endorsing the governor's urging that towns share services:

No one suggests that getting a handful of towns to share a library or to combine fire departments will solve the problem of ever-escalating property taxes. Reducing that burden will take a significant restructuring of the state's tax system. But even once that's completed, the savings will be short-lived unless municipal and school leaders institute permanent ways to control expenses. Shared services can do that.

Some sharing already occurs but not nearly enough, particularly in a state that has 566 towns, 618 school districts, 212 fire districts and 190 authorities. Surprisingly, mayors, school boards and council members, who jealously guard their powers, aren't always at fault for this situation. There are more than 200 state laws dealing with local powers, and some even prevent towns from sharing services.

Woodbridge covers 23 square miles. About 97,000 residents live in that area. In neighboring Union County, the abut ting towns of Cranford, Gar wood, Mountainside, Springfield, Summit and Westfield spread out over 27 square miles. The combined population of the six towns is around 98,000. Woodbridge's budget is generally at least $20 million less than the combined budgets of the six Union municipalities. Police protection alone costs Woodbridge taxpayers about $3 million less than it does those in the Union County six.

Why, for example, shouldn't a town and school district be allowed to have a single payroll office? Why shouldn't maintenance crews be permitted to repair a boiler in city hall or the high school? Laws that restrict such activities aren't the only problems. Maybe the most significant hurdle is the fear of many that their hometowns will lose their identities. But economizing doesn't have to mean erasing a sense of place.

"We cannot continue to blame some antiquated state laws, as outlined in the Star Ledger article," says Mattox. "As town leaders, we have the power to change those laws that don't work for towns—and through dialogue with other towns, we can lean on Trenton. That's how laws get changed."

Mattox and his slate will continue to hold town-wide and/or ward-wide "Listening Nights," introduced last year as a free-flowing forum for residents to discuss concerns and air opinions. "The council meetings are too formal for residents to really dig into issues that concern them," he says. "The Listening Nights better encourage people to speak out and get responses from other residents and Council members."

For further information, visit the Thrive Montclair website at www.ThriveMontclair.com.