Property Tax Stabilization

We are residents and taxpayers. We believe managing the taxpayers' dollars requires the upmost care. Our goal is to make Manville one of the best places to live, work, and play, while ensuring fiscal responsibility to our taxpayers. This is done through smart development, prudent spending, and ongoing budget management.

Stabilizing taxes requires a multi-pronged approach:

First, there is a need for smart development, especially of the Rustic Mall, but also of vacant or underutilized properties to generate new tax revenue. This will help reduce the reliance of existing residential properties for the tax base.

Second, the Borough can be more aggressive in their pursuit of grants from the county and state. Grant applications should be focused on specific needs, sufficiently detailed, submitted timely, and clearly state the desired outcomes. Once grants are awarded, they need to be implemented promptly. The Borough currently has many grants that were awarded years ago, are not yet completed, and require extensions. This impacts future grants, as funders question the capacity of the Borough to complete grants in a timely manner or don't award a new grant when one is still in process. Grant management is an expertise of Melissa Bellamy's and she has a knowledge of grant compliance with federal, state, and county grants and be able to identify new opportunities.

Third, all budget items should be reviewed for potential cost savings. This may be through shared service agreements, joint purchases, lower cost options for purchases, and technology cost savings.

Infrastructure and capital needs of the Borough have not been fully addressed. There is an opportunity to use proceeds from the sewer sale to invest in long-term needs, such as equipment or infrastructure improvement. Many grant opportunities require a percentage of matching local funds, usually between 10-25%. This is a great way to leverage the sewer sale proceeds, so a $100,000-250,000 investment of Borough funds can be used to secure a $1M project.

Lastly, the municipal budget process should continue throughout the year. There should be quarterly check-ins on revenue projections, to see if they are on target or if there will be any shortfalls. This helps prevent end-of-the-year surprises and is a part of ongoing budget management.

Transparency In Borough Government

While the Borough meets the minimal legal requirements in notifying the public of its planned action, it should be proactively informing residents of major topics on their agendas and elected officials should want and welcome input from our residents.

A lack of transparency is evidenced when in 2024, the Borough changed zoning of the Rustic Mall property and South Main Street property from Commercial to Municipal without even notifying the affected property owners. While they were not legally obligated to inform these business and property owners, because this was a change in the Master Plan, this is not good government.

While the ManvilleToday app and website have been a great help in keeping residents informed AFTER a meeting occurs, more needs to be done to outreach to residents before, so they can attend meetings and make their voices heard. This can be accomplished by educating people about how to sign up for agenda meeting alerts, better utilizing Borough social media pages and making meeting notices more prominent on the Borough website.

When the Rustic Mall plans are developed, there needs to be full transparency and residents input needs to be proactively sought. None of us individually can come up with the most optimal redevelopment plan for the Borough, which is why many voices and different concerns can be shared. When a redevelopment plan is being created, there should be multiple opportunities for residents to provide input and for the elected officials to consider these comments in any final decision BEFORE it is made.

Transparency can also be achieved through having meetings broadcast live, with an option for residents to participate virtually. Both of us believe strongly that it is past time for the Borough to take this step and make their meetings more accessible to residents who work long hours, parents helping their kids with homework, and seniors who might not want to leave their homes later at night.

Embrace Technology

Our local government should be as accessible and efficient as the people it serves. When elected, we will advocate for modernizing Borough operations by improving the audio quality of Council meetings, live-stream meetings with Zoom participation for all residents and providing recorded meetings with easy playback links on the Borough website so residents can stay informed on their own schedule.

We also support expanding online services by allowing residents to order items such as bulk trash stickers and other municipal permits or services online, with the option to have them mailed directly to their homes. This is not to take away in-person services, but rather a way to accommodate those who work and cannot get into Borough Hall for routine requests. These ideas represent a commonsense approach to looking for ways our residents can be better served. As a working parent, Christine Abood knows the challenges residents face when they are limited to assessing certain services only during business hours.

Behind the scenes, implementing project management software for major community initiatives, grant-funded projects, and municipal operations will improve organization, accountability, and transparency while reducing reliance on outdated paper-based systems, minimizing the risk of lost or misplaced paperwork.

In addition, we would look to build out the borough-related information for new (and existing) residents online for ease of use. By embracing technology, we can make local government more efficient, more transparent, and more convenient for every resident.

Create A More Resilient Community

Five years after Hurricane Ida, Manville needs to focus on creating a more resilient community to better prepare for future storm events. Flood protection should include both gray and green systems. Gray protection is typical engineering infrastructure like stormwater catch basins, pipes, and culverts. Green protection uses nature-based systems to help manage water, such as restoring floodplains with trees and native vegetation, rain gardens, and bioswales. We pledge to create a climate resiliency plan focusing on flood management that identifies specific gray and green improvements for improving our existing stormwater management plan. This will be done by following the guidance the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJ DEP) provides for creating a more storm and climate resilient community. While this plan is developed by professionals, it will be done by obtaining input from community stakeholders. Once specific projects and their potential effectiveness have been identified, it will put the Borough in a stronger position for applying for grants.

Many residents have taken advantage of the NJ DEP's Blue Acres Buyout program. This has left the borough with many property lots that formerly had homes on them but now are just vacant grass lots that our Department of Public Works must maintain by regularly mowing. It doesn't have to be this way. The State allows for the restoration of Blue Acres properties. They can be used for passive recreation or restoring the land to a more natural state by planting native flood tolerant plants. The City of Linden and Township of Woodbridge both have had great success in restoring Blue Acres properties to make them attractive, useful, and more storm resilient.

The Borough should be looking for ways to address flood protection in big and small ways in just about every type of improvement project. This can include looking to reduce impervious surfaces by using more permeable surfaces or porous paving, installing more rain gardens, using stormwater planters, and expanding or improving our existing stormwater system.

We would also propose the establishment of an Environmental Commission that can encompass the existing Shade Tree Commission, but would be more comprehensive to include other environmental concerns like open space management, storm water management, pollution, recycling, etc. An Environmental Commission can also help coordinate educational opportunities for our residents, promote existing programs like Clean Communities Day and be the advisory advocates to ensure any development is done in an environmentally responsible way. There is also the Association of NJ Environmental Commissions (ANJEC), which can provide some advice and guidance to this board and that also provides grant opportunities to municipal Environmental Commissions.