First Community Meeting 3/18/09
03/19/2009
I've put aside a little time each week to actually use this blog. Wish me luck.
We
had the first of four Community Meetings last night at the HS Annex to
talk about the three topics I had picked (see the home page for
information). About 50 people came and although taxes were "the
elephant in the room" as someone said, we had a real conversation.
Please come to one of the remaining meetings!
Here are a few non-governmental things you might be interested in:
The Poetry Festival
This
year, the Dodge Foundation said it had to cancel it's 2010 bi-annual
festival, which has been held for several years at pastoral Waterloo
Village. Township Manager Joe Hartnett, knowing because of First Night
that we have the resources to host it, approaced Dodge to offer
Montclair as a site. The directors of the foundation and Poetry
Festival visited last week and has a whirlwind tour of many sites near
our downtown and were very impressed. Although we won't know if it's
going to happen for a couple of months, it's a very exciting
possibility that would really enhance our "brand" and help the local
economy. More info, contact head of the Montclair Arts Council, Jim
Peskin: jim.montclairarts@gmail.com
NJ Together at Montclair
This is a newly formed progressive group in town that's pursuing a variety of social justice and community issues.
It's a "power group" following the model of Saul Alinsky's Industrial
Areas Foundation (see Wikipedia). It's meetings are open to all. The
genesis was an interfaith collaboration between several of the town's
most activist congregations, including B'nai Keshet, the Unitarian
Universalist Congregation, Union Congregational and Union Baptist.
They're just now working on their specific mission, but their model of
activism has been VERY effective creating thousands of units of
affordable housing in New York. I've been to a few of their meetings
and recommend it to anyone who really wants to effect change but hates
ineffective meetings. Contact: Rev. Stephanie Weiner
sweiner@unioncong.org
Our Magnet Schools
A citizen group of "magnet school activists" has created a terrific
short film that shows how Montclair transformed itself from a largely
segregated town to one in which the school system is the lynchpin of
our quest for true social and economic diversity. Times have changed,
but the needs for active community engagement and REAL integration
remain. This group of residents, some of whom are veterans of the
struggle, are starting a series of gatherings to show the films and get
people together in the spirit of
strengthening the bonds of community and promoting the real mission of
our schools. Contact: Mary Beth Rosenthal
<mbrosenthal@comcast.net>
That's enough for now. Stay in touch.
jfried@montclairnjusa.org
Schools Budget/Community Meetings Summary
04/07/2009
Last week, the Board of School Estimate, which includes BOE members Tim Barr and Shelly Lombard and Councillors Murnick, Baskerville and myself, passed a schools budget increase of 3.3%, creating an actual TAX increase of 4.1% on the schools portion of your tax bill. This increase, the lowest in ten years, was, we felt, necessary to preserve the high quality of our schools. Significant cuts were made to classroom aides and non-teaching staff.
The next several weeks will consist of working with the Manager on the Municipal portion of your tax bill, about 25% We are setting an ambitious goal... looking at what an essentially FLAT budget would mean. I'm sure that many cuts will be unacceptable to us but we agree that we should start low and add what we have to.
Leading up to the School Budget vote, I concluded my series of Community Meetings. All in all, it was incredibly informative speaking with residents over the previous three weeks. We met in each of the four wards with other Council Members and members of the School Board as well. Generally the conversation centered on the three topics I had chosen:
Reducing the reliance on property taxes, by utilizing "smart development" and maintaining social and economic diversity
Leveraging state and federal dollars to implement "Complete Streets" town-wide traffic-calming measures
Making smart choices in providing an excellent education for ALL students and the role of the new school in fulfilling that mission
At each meeting there were several people for whom taxes were the ONLY real issue, totally understandable with the state of our economy and prior year's increases. The previous increase, passed on the last day of the outgoing Council, was an unsustainable 7.7%. This year we're aiming for an increase between 3 and 4%. As much as it would be ideal to have NO increase, it won't be possible because of existing contracts and other obligations. We will be looking at reductions in services and staff, increases in fees, greater efficiencies, changing work schedules and just about any other means of reducing the property tax burden.
Ultimately development, "making the pie bigger" is the major long-term solution we can implement here in Montclair. More on this next time.
Montclair Township Municipal Building
