Enough is Enough: Time to Move Forward NOT Backwards!

Betty Ann Fort has been Mayor or Deputy Mayor since 2015. Under her leadership the municipal budget has increased 11% and we homeowners are bearing more than our fair share of that. Our portion of the municipal budget has grown 18%, farmers 7%.

In contrast, our commercial ratable base has shrunk by 11%, again, under Ms. Fort's leadership.

The Economics Commission I will create will be tasked with proactively fixing this in a responsible and PUBLICLY ACCOUNTABLE way that will benefit all the citizens of this community. As of now we do not have that accountability in the form of a business association.

We need change in our local leadership: I have 30 years of business experience leading collaborative change across diverse teams to drive consensus and results. Vote Esakoff for Readington Township Committee on November 5th!

Sincere gratitude to all of our First Reponders!!

Today is National First Responder's Day. I want to thank each and every one of our Readington First Responders for your dedication and your service to our community. What you do makes a difference to our community and saves lives. We appreciate your service!

READINGTON'S DEBT CRISIS

READINGTON'S DEBT CRISIS
is largely the product of singleminded and unfettered determination by the Township Committee and the Open Space Advisory Board to acquire open space acreage at all costs. This ultimately led to the attempt to seize private property through the use of an eminent domain action and a 10+ year protracted legal battle which the township recently lost on appeal. Readington Township officials were called out by name in the court’s opinion as having deliberately misled the public. We taxpayers continue to pay for this as new litigation matters concerning Solberg are before the township. Additional litigation has been initiated by Rosedale & Rosehill Cemetery. This will not be helped by unfortunate comments made during township meetings by our public officials (read more here: https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/development/2019/07/01/readington-township-sued-over-denial-cemetery/1589100001/ ).

It is critical that we have Township officials who DO NOT view debt as a blank check to push through agendas that may not be in the best interests of the majority of our community members.

There is a pattern of lack of Transparency in the current (and previous) township governing body.

• Last year the Esakoff and Fiore campaign uncovered violations of the Open Public Meetings act on the part of several committees, most notably the Environmental commission which failed to report meeting minutes for nearly 5 years. That has been corrected as a result of our calling it out.

• The Readington Business Association is operating under the radar purposefully in order to avoid reporting back to the public. ["no more than 2 committee members attend at a time to comply with OPMA"- Ben Smith Jan 2019]. If more than 2 attend they'd be forced to report publicly. I propose creating an Economics Commission that will be held accountable to the public.

• At the October 7th meeting just a two weeks ago, the committee changed the way it reports current litigation matters. They said they used to list under the Executive Session agenda ALL litigation regardless of whether it is discussed during the session. Going forward they will only list matters for which they "have a discussion or make a decision" during that meeting. In fact, it may be the case that "one committee member may have a conversation with an attorney separately" if a decision needs to be made. Why stop listing these items? The dollars at stake are high. We need TRANSPARENCY. In fact there are at least two matters not listed: Rosehill and Rosedale Cemetery and Solberg Aviation. It is not clear what fees are associated or what the long term budget impact will be.

ACT now for Change- Vote for me on November 5th and I will continue to push for greater public access to decision-making and information.

Readington Municipal Debt is Way Out of Line

Our municipal debt in Readington Township is roughly 3X higher than our neighbors. 26% of our municipal budget is just to service that debt- in 2019 we will pay $3.8 Million. We need responsible governance that works toward reducing/eliminating litigation costs and applies cost/benefit analysis with the voice citizen in mind prior to authorizing additional large scale expenditures.

Objective criteria for open space acquisition desperately needed

MORE ON ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY: A SCORECARD FOR EVALUATING OPEN SPACE ACQUISITION

Earlier this year the township spent $600K on an open space parcel that has no access to roads and is on steep slope. The value of the parcel was questioned repeatedly by concerned citizens.
I propose creating an objective scorecard for evaluating open space parcels and having those criteria developed with input from the wider public, and published.

At the July 15th Township committee meeting, Adam Muller, a member of the Open Space Advisory Board publicly stated the criteria for open space selection should NOT be released to the public. This from a committee that was called out last year for operating outside its charter.

This needs to change now. ACT for change- Vote November 5th!

Create more opportunity AND more transparency

Here is some of what I propose:

Accountability: I will establish the Readington Economics Commission that will work to improve our commercial tax base by encouraging small business and cottage industries to come to Readington. This will include partnering with business like Unicom to look for mutually beneficial business opportunities that benefit them and provide goods and services that our residents will value.

Transparency: The Readington Economics Commission will be subject to Open Public Meeting Act requirement - unlike the Readington Business Association which does not need to report to the citizens. We have too many meetings and decisions being made in this town without full public input.

Under the current Township Committee we've gone backwards

Since 2015 Betty Ann Fort has been mayor or deputy mayor for Readington Township.  During that time Readington has gone backwards: 

1)    The municipal budget has increased 11%

2)    The tax burden born by residents has increased 18% while commercial taxes have remained flat

3)    Even our farmers are paying 7% more in taxes to support the growing municipal budget

And for what?  The budget line that has grown the most is debt service.  Since 2015 the amount of our taxes that go just to service growing municipal debt has increased by 31%! Debt service now 26% of the entire municipal budget.

ACT for change on November 5th.  Vote for me and I pledge to increase Accountability, improve our Community connections and bring a higher level of Transparency to our township decision making.

Readington Business Association is not part of the township government

A key goal of mine when elected to Readington Township Committee on Nov 5th will be to ensure greater accountability and transparency for Readington citizens and community members. A big part will be to establish the Readington Economics Commission. The current business association created by Ben Smith and endorsed by Betty Ann Fort continues the township committee's pattern of operating without transparency. In fact, they intentionally only have 2 committee members attend at a time- more than that and they would have to report meeting minutes to the public under the Open Public Meeting Act

Meeting with community members

Great night last night with local community members discussing issues that effect us all:

A) We need Accountability from our township committee that balances open space interests with a sustainable economic plan including long term debt reduction.

C) We need better Community recreation opportunities and gathering spots for ALL ages and that are based on the interests of ALL community members.

T) We have a right to more Transparency into how local decisions are mad and how our tax dollars are spent.

ACT now. Vote for change and I will implement these governing principles.