Dear neighbors, During my tenure on the Land Use Board we have promoted, encouraged and approved many developments that added revenues to the town. A few worth mentioning are: Raymore & Flanagan at Hwy 22 and 122. We also approved a pad site on the property for future development. The old Commodore Inn, A decaying property and site of a murder in 2004 was torn down to make this happen. The Penn Jersey Truck Stop across the street will never be pretty but is looking better than it did before. There is even a new Vietnamese restaurant in the building. If you are food adventurous give it a try. Dunkin Donuts replaced the old convenience store at USA Gas next to Raymore & Flanagan. At the mall we now have Panera Bread & Chick-fil-A looking better than the places they replaced. The old Wal-Mart in Pohatcong Plaza was not interested in expansion and was at one time using 26 trailers in the parking lot to store their merchandise. We passed ordinances to charge them thousands of dollars in fees for these trailers. The final result is they agreed to expansion and we now have the New Super Wal-Mart on the decrepit former Laneco property with additional developed sites for White Castle, Wawa and a new restaurant set to open in early 2014. The old Wal-Mart is being redeveloped into three new stores and a new pad site in the parking lot for a future project. For those that claim I have no interest in development south of Hwy 78 the records will show that we approved expansion at both Alba and Villamiegro wineries. I do not recall any project coming before the board that was rejected without cause. All of this has brought in increased ratables for the town. The most recent numbers from Warren County shows a $28 million dollar increase in Pohatcong property values just last year. Issues that affect our town. The Highlands Council. I have been accused by my detractors of being anti development. That my work getting the Highlands Council to accept our town’s proposal for compliance and my support of the Town Council entering into plan conformance with the Highlands Council is damaging to the town. Some claim the Highlands protection act is a bad thing for our town. Nothing can be further from the truth. If helping to prevent tax increases is a bad thing I’m all for it. Some believe building 1000 more homes in our town on what is currently farm land would be a good thing. They claim more houses equals less taxes. This small but vocal minority wants to build these houses and leave the rest of us to pay their tax. 1000 more houses will mean expanding the size of our school and the taxes needed to fund it. Currently it costs us over $10,000.00 per child for our K-Eight school and much more than that to send our high school kids to Phillipsburg High School. The average homeowner in our town pays over $7,000.00 in taxes. 1/2 of this goes to the school. Only 25% goes to the Township. I just do not see how adding more kids to our school will cost us less. I have never seen economies of scale ever translate into government or any school system. I am not interesting in paying for more street maintenance, street lights, snow plowing, fire & police protection etc. We still have undeveloped existing lots in Park Side, Shimmer and Alpha Lawn Annex neighborhoods and south of Hwy 78 as well. When these existing lots are developed we can look into other opportunities if we think that would be good for the town. We do not need to do this now. Our current plan with the Highlands Council is assisting us in confirming sewer service to the Granama Farms tract (part of our yet to be developed Industrial park) on Hwy 122 at Bliss Blvd. This last large tract of developable land north of Hwy 78 and near highway access is our best hope for bringing in more ratables to our town. The State Department of Environmental Protection has tried to remove sewer from this property. We need the Highlands Council support to keep our sewer service there. This is a very complicated issue that cannot be explained in a couple of paragraphs. Please give me a call. I’d love to spend time discussing it with you. Pohatcong School. The current Town Council is involving itself in the actions of the School. I firmly believe that cooperation between the two governing bodies is necessary. Creating a situation where we the taxpayer will be paying for lawyers on both sides to work out political differences is not acceptable. I will not support this kind of nonsense. Lawsuits. The town is currently involved in two lawsuits which I believe could have been avoided if current members of the Town Council had decent management experience and an understanding of their governing responsibilities. We need to settle these suits and prevent mole hills from becoming mountains in the future. Personnel Management. Over the past two years the town has replaced the CFO, Chief of Police, Tax Assessor and Animal Control officer. All the new personnel came in at higher rates and often providing fewer services. Each time it was described as cost saving moves. How much longer can we afford this cost saving? The Dirt Council recently authorized spending an additional $350,000.00 + on the municipal building above and beyond the huge sums already approved for this project. This “found” money the council is using is really from funds previously designated for and or reserved for Police, Fire and Road department projects. Other little treats like banners on telephone poles, TV’s in the hallways and tablet computers for the council members also came from the same source. If Pohatcong has the best equipped Police and Fire departments in the land and all our roads are glass smooth this might be a good expenditure of our tax money. You be the judge. Council wrote a check to Greenwich Township for $300,000.00 to turn the Red Light Cameras back on at Hwy 22 and 122. Shortly afterward Council voted to keep the lights off. So why did they give Greenwich $300,000.00 of our money? What was the quid pro quo? How did the deal go bad? Call me and we can talk this through. I, like you work hard so that my family can live here in Pohatcong. I believe we are a community of decent people who want to raise our families in friendly neighborhoods. Some of us are not involved or even aware of some of the issues that currently affect our lives until the day comes to pay our taxes. Many of us are involved in the community thru the school, Fire Dept or the recreation programs. For all of you volunteers I say “Thank you for your hard work”. I was never a star athlete. I instead chose to volunteer to help in town government. I am simply a neighbor of yours that chose to get involved in our town and help to make it a better place for all of us. I am grateful for your support and looking for your vote on November 5th. Thank you again, marc 908-387-1758 Facebook: Marc Metzger for Council
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 13:06:32 +0000