On Fri, Sep 27, 2024 at 1:47 PM [DELETED NAME and EMAIL] wrote:
(1) Why do you think that West Orange needs a golf course?
(2) What do you think should be done about getting West Orange taxes under control? What are your qualifications for doing it?
Hello!
Those are great questions. I will try to keep this answer short, but can’t promise! If you would rather just discuss, feel free to give me a call on my cell phone: 917-565-3341.
On the golf course, I don’t know that WO needs a golf course; however, protecting that land from further development should be the priority in my opinion. So a couple of points are important to the analysis I think. Hopefully this will help you see how I approach questions like yours.
First, assuming the golf course is to be sold, to whom could we sell? Options that existed at the time of the purchase were a) Essex County, which would offer significantly below what WO paid, seeking a bargain price with no promise to limit further development, or
b) a development company that would seek to maximize profits while building residential homes.
One discussion that occurred at the time of WO’s purchase was that the Township would apply for Green Acres funding for about 50% of the purchase price (6 million or so, if I remember correctly), which would be used to retire at least half of the debt. The remainder of the debt would be serviced by revenue collected from a lease to an operating entity and the average would be preserved. Since the purchase, WO has not successfully applied for Green Acres funding and I find that fact completely unacceptable. The understanding among the Council at the time was that such funds would immediately be applied for and pursued as a priority. Seems that did not happen - your guess is as good as mine as to why not. Applying for those funds would be one of the first priorities I have on the council. Getting Green Acres funding preserves the property from development in perpetuity and relieves a portion of our debt burden. Only then, with the property preserved, would I be willing to entertain other options - for example a sale to some other entity, better management or lease agreements, partial development or renovation of the clubhouse, or some other option. Point is, neither this administration nor the last one seriously pursued effective management of this property or the debt associated with it. I would seek to immediately address both of those failures..
Second, WO has no plan for management of the property (or any property that we own, for that matter). We have no revenue projection and no idea how it should operate year over year, what the costs are likely to be, and consequently we have no revenue goals for the property. This is a theme that occurs over and over again across management of our town - no projection, no plan, and poor management. That must change across the board.
On your second question - taxes - I have a similar answer. No candidate in this race can tell you what is likely to happen with races and no candidate can reliably tell you that they will control taxes. The reason is because as a township we have no projection for our likely future costs and we have no projection what our future revenues are likely to be. Unless and until we have a plan, our local government will continue to be in triage mode every year - moving money around to cover contingencies and just hoping that our municipal house of cards stay stacked. I would be very happy to be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am.
The solution has to be that we create reliable budget projections so that we can reasonably predict what our costs will be. Once we do that we will be able to create plans and goals for revenue and spending, identifying priorities to support our residents. Right now though there is no ability to “manage” our tax burden because we do not know what our budget might look like next year or in 3 or in 5 years.
I am an attorney by training and retired after 20 years working in the securities markets in New York - as a federal regulator and in private practice - and I know how to identify a problem, dig into it and quickly devise a solution. That is the kind of energy and skill I will bring to the Council.
I hope this answers your excellent questions. I have other thoughts as well, but am trying to keep this relatively short. If you would like to discuss, I would be happy to. My cell phone is 917-565-3341. Please give me a call anytime.
Best,
Jonathan
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