Has the mayor fully explored shared services opportunities with neighboring municipalities to combine DPW services? The economies of scale created when combining resources to offer residents services have proven financially beneficial to other towns who have completed their due diligence and championed merging operations. The mayor Alexander and his administration have raised your taxes every year they have been in office. Residents need to call the mayor to ask questions and let the borough hear their concerns about the plan and budget.

We are experiencing the worst economic times in over 60 years and for this or any administration not to propose a budget that reduces expenses, implements an emergency purchasing order throughout the borough and use the boroughâ??s cash surplus (the rainy day fund) to decrease our taxes is contrary to the mayorâ??s and his administrationâ??s pledge to reduce you taxes when running for their offices and is not using prudence and common sense. Other issues with the garnet plan is that it attempts to put two feet into one shoe as the proposed site is much smaller than the current DPW home and would further complicate Hoffâ??s Park and athletic fields area. The plan proposes a fee based community center, but many of these fee-based community centers fail and further burden the municipality to cover the costs of overhead. The plan pledges that the new DPW site would not operate after 3:00 p.m. So what about snow and leave removal operations and emergency activity? Then there is the issue of a pending lawsuit with the borough over the DPW employee layoffs that occurred last year could potential result in their reinstatement and the order to pay all of them their salaries retro to last year. The mayorâ??s plan also provides no accommodation to park our school buses which currently park at the DPW facility. A detail that the mayor failed to share with the school board when he worked with them on the pending school budget so that they can make other accommodations to park the buses.

Haddon Heights residents need to take notice. The mayor and his council colleagues have introduced a plan called Project Garnet that, as it is scheduled to roll out with an equally questionable budget pending approval in May, is a risky real estate scheme that places tax payers in jeopardy of years of financial tax hardship. At first glance it may appear to be a good idea, but after laying out the plan as made available, there are several critical concerns. The plan calls for creating long-term municipal debt to purchase an American Water company complex to house the Department of Public Works - before there is a buyer for the current DPW site. Would you by a new home before you had a buyer for you current home? The plan purports that when the borough eventually sells the DPW site to a developer for â??affordableâ?� housing as the masterplan would dictate, the sale would generate cash to offset the cost of the project and their projected reduction in revenues. But does it really? The mayorâ??s presentation available on the boroughâ??s website does little to demystify the financial real-estate scheme and fails to educate residents about the details.

My family and I moved her 2 years 4 months ago and our taxes went up twice. With rising taxes and school procedures and laws not followed in this district; causes for change in Haddon Heights. Sign me up!!

Sign me up!

There is a huge opportunity to use the tax issue against the republicans. Their platform is based solely on the tax issue and it is rapidly dividing this town. We as Democrats need to spread a positive message to unite. We also need to be more proactive in disputing the lies and misconceptions that are being spread by certain groups. And finally, we need to remind people about how wonderful it is to live in Haddon Heights and that people should look around and realize that it's become very difficult to find the quality of life that we enjoy in our town.