Help answer these questions by shaping Metuchen’s vision for the Middlesex Greenway.

OPEN HOUSE MEETING
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Metuchen Senior Citizen’s Center
15 Center Street • Metuchen

Come discuss improvements and design possibilities for the proposed Greenway extension with the Environmental Commission, planners and ecologists.

Help brainstorm ideas on:
- Pedestrian and Bike Connections
- Open Space Design
- Sustainable Stormwater Management
- Community Gardens
- Sustainable Agriculture

“Most of you are probably aware that there have been some concerns about the potential of loss of the Business Personal Property Tax from Verizon,” said Business Administrator William Boerth at the Oct. 5 Borough Council meeting. “There is a potential the borough may lose this money, which amounts to $166,000, though we don’t know this yet. Obviously, that would impact us considerably. It is fairly technical, and I don’t understand it all, but I have met with a representative from Verizon to be brought up to date in terms of what is happening and what the potential could be for the borough.”

Verizon plans to soon notify fifty to sixty municipalities around New Jersey that the company will not pay them this tax in 2010, which is an increase from five municipalities that Verizon stopped paying in 2008. By the end of 2010, Verizon plans to stop paying these fees to up to 150 municipalities for the following year.

The tax is substantial, with Verizon paying municipalities around the state a total of $47 million in 2007.

“It is anticipated that as time goes on, more and more municipalities are going to lose this as the current legislation allows for Verizon to eliminate payments to municipalities if their provisional dial tone and access falls below 50 percent,” Boerth said. “We are not there yet. It may not happen next year, but it is anticipated that it is going happen to all municipalities as forms of communication change and as people don’t have land lines, etc.”

What Boerth means is this: Verizon has interpreted a 1997 amendment to a 1940s-era state law to mean that when the company’s market share for its phone service drops below 51 percent in any municipality, it no longer has to pay the BPPT tax in that town. However, whether or not Verizon is correctly interpreting the law’s intent has been the subject of much ongoing debate around the state.

The New Jersey Legislature’s Office of Legislative Services, a nonpartisan service that provides legal research and advice to the state’s elected leaders, has said that the BPPT is actually a tax on the net book value of the physical equipment Verizon has in a given community, (telephone poles, switches, etc.), “regardless of the revenue generated by the equipment.” (See the last four pages of the documents in the linked .pdf file for the Legislative Service’s opinion).

In other words, Verizon’s market share may have nothing to do with the BPPT tax, and one could even argue that Verizon may owe municipalities more money, not less, due to the company’s development of a state-wide physical infrastructure (fiber optic cable, etc) for its FiOS service.

Moreover, compounding the problem is the fact that it is very difficult to accurately confirm Verizon’s claims on market share in a municipality beyond taking the company’s word for it. So, even if Verizon’s interpretation of the law were correct, there currently exists no easy way to independently audit Verizon’s claim that its market share for phone service in a given town has dropped below 51 percent, if and when it does.

Regardless, the New Jersey Legislature is now considering drafting legislation that would tax all video services, including cable and satellite, along with any future entrants into the telecommunications market, Boerth said.

Verizon has said that it supports changes to the tax law that replaces the BPPT with a tax that applies to all companies in the communications market. The company wants tax law governing the BPPT to be changed, saying that it was passed before technological changes that have allowed cable, satellite, and Internet companies to offer phone services and Verizon to offer video services.

“There are most likely going to be various proposals before the draft legislation is introduced, but this is something we should be very wary of in the future,” Boerth said. “We should look to support legislation if that is in our best interest to do so. Although we don’t know if we are going to lose funds next year, we will get our funding this year, so we won’t have a deficit of revenue.”

One such proposal mentioned by Boerth is to create a flat six percent tax on all such telecom services, which should actually increase the amount of revenue for the borough.

“They estimate this would provide Metuchen with $49,000 more in revenue above the $166,000, so it could be, depending on how [the legislation] is crafted, a very good thing for the borough,” he said. “Obviously, it is a fee that would be paid by subscribers, so it would not be so good for them, however. So there are pros and cons on this.”

These were words spoken by Kate, now 20 years old, who was one of the speakers at Metuchen’s first annual Recovery Month Celebration, held at Borough Hall on Sept. 29. The evening, organized by the Metuchen Municipal Alliance, was comprised of a panel discussion of speakers including drug and alcohol experts, local leaders, and several former addicts now in recovery. Approximately 65 members of the public were in attendance.

National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month is an annual observance that takes place each September. The purpose is to highlight the benefits of substance abuse treatment and spread the message that recovery from substance abuse addiction is possible.

Alliance representative and borough resident Irene Morris-Nann said that the idea for the evening stemmed from the realization of just how difficult it is to openly discuss the disease of addiction.

“The stigma attached to the disease makes it a tough subject to talk about,” she said after the evening. “We wanted to bring it out in the open and show that it happens to a large percentage of people. It is so prevalent that probably half the people in the room that night are somehow affected by somebody else’s addiction. I just want people suffering from addiction to know that there are resources out there that can help them.”

For Nann, the subject of the evening was of personal significance as well.

“I, like 67 percent of the population, am affected by someone else’s drinking or drug use,” she said. “It hit home for me about 10 years ago, when it was affecting my family, and there was a lot of shame and embarrassment. The stigma attached to the disease can be overwhelming. If my loved one had cancer, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to tell anyone, but with this, I can’t say it out loud without someone looking down at me. Today, I have family members and friends in recovery, and I go to a twelve-step support group for people affected by addiction. I still have one family member not in recovery, but I can put one foot in front of the other because I have support.”

Panel members took turns speaking. They included Metuchen Police Chief James Keane, Joe Conti of First Step Counseling in Metuchen, Chris Barton of the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey, and Student Assistance Counselor Judi Cheung of the Metuchen school district, along with three former addicts now in recovery.

“Police usually are in the business of detecting and apprehending individuals who are using drugs and alcohol,” said Chief Keane. “But for some people, the arrest is the beginning for them to get help to overcome their addiction. A lot of people come to our building to get help, with some even asking to speak to me directly. Sometimes they are parents, and sometimes it is the person who has the problem. At that point we reach out to various agencies we are familiar with for them to get the help they need.”

In New Jersey, cocaine is still the most popular drug and drug of choice, Keane said, though law enforcement is now also seeing an uptick in heroin use in Middlesex County. In 2008, heroin was used by 18-25 year olds in New Jersey at a rate that was more than twice as high as the national average.

“Heroin is now very cheap, it is easy to get, and it is very addictive,” he said. “Also, crime used to be 50 to 60 percent drug-related, but now it has gone up to being 65 to 75 percent drug-related. Drugs drive the crime rate up, especially with regards to burglaries, thefts, and larcenies. Really anything these people need to do support their habit they are going to do.”

According to a report published last month in the New York Times, street heroin in New Jersey is among the purest in the country, with purity levels as high as 72 percent, making the drug even more addictive and harder to quit.

Also speaking that night were married couple Frank and Marla, who are both recovering addicts. Frank said that he suffered all “throughout adolescence” as a result of his addiction to drugs.

“Dealing with addiction is the worst thing I have ever dealt with,” he said. “It is a disease that is so greedy it will take everything until there is nothing left. For years I suffered. I hid things, and I became a detective running around chasing doctors and drug dealers. It wasn’t until I reached a point where I was almost on my knees and out of options that one night, with my health suffering, I went on the computer and did a search and found a twelve-step group.”

“Since then, the road to recovery has taught me to be grateful and to be compassionate when dealing with addicts,” Frank said. “Without recovery, I probably wouldn’t be married, and my kids wouldn’t be drug-free themselves.”

His wife Marla said that her problems with drugs began while she was still a pre-teen, when she started using her mother’s prescription drugs as a way to treat her own anxiety.

“I grew up in a very dysfunctional household, with a lot of neglect, chaos, yelling, and screaming,” she said. “I also came to learn that I was adopted, which caused me a lot of pain. I believe every addict who turns to drugs has had some kind of pain or trauma in their life, and they are trying to numb that pain. So I started using drugs at a very young age as a way of self-medicating. My mother had a nervous condition and needed to take a particular pill. I had some anxiety, and I thought I would try some of those. It worked for a while, but with the disease of addiction, I did not stop at that particular drug.

Marla said that there were only “a few drugs” that she didn’t end up experimenting with over her life.

“Addiction is a disease of low self-esteem and self-loathing,” she said. “I thought there was something innately wrong with me, and I needed drugs to feel normal. I didn’t understand that I had a disease. As an adult I used heavily, which continued for many years, but eventually, I was introduced to a twelve-step program, and I immediately felt as though I belonged. I got a sponsor who knew a lot more than me, who had 21 years in recovery, and I started listening to some of the things she was saying. I felt as though these people understood me. The most important thing I learned was that everything about my life had to change, and from that moment on, it was fairly easy to stay clean. I now say that if I could stop using drugs and become a productive member of society, anybody can.”

Marla has since returned to school to become an alcohol and drug counselor.

But perhaps the most poignant moment of the night was offered by Kate, who said that she always thought she was going to “die an addict.”

“I am now 20 years old, but at one point I didn’t think I was going to live past 19,” she said. “Addiction was my whole life, and my whole life was a mess. I never realized how much damage I did to my family and the people that really loved me. I wasn’t invited to Thanksgiving, and I didn’t get to go to Christmas. I didn’t have a relationship with anyone in my family. I didn’t believe that there was anything out there that could help me, and I thought I was going to die an addict. I was incredibly miserable and unhappy. But then I attended my first twelve-step meeting, and for the first time I really felt a part of something. It took me a little while, but I got clean in 2008. It was hard, but I have a really good life today. It’s good to be a part of a community that I took so much from as a child… where I did a lot of bad things.”

“There was more than one time that I have sat here in the borough’s police station, and it wasn’t because I was invited to speak to people,” Kate said. “But today I can give back. I go to college. I have a job, and I’m not stealing money from my job. Though in the past I had been asked by my grandmother to not come over for the holidays, now I live in her house and cook dinner for Thanksgiving. I’m proud of the progress I’ve made over the last three years, and I can be a part of my family’s life again. Now I have the best life I could have ever imagined.”

If you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, you can call First Step Counseling in Metuchen at 732-549-0401 for confidential advice and help.

Beginning in November, Metuchen will put job postings for the position in newspapers including the New York Times and the Star-Ledger and will advertise the position at colleges and universities in both New York and New Jersey, said schools superintendent Terri Sinatra at last week’s Board of Education (BOE) meeting.

“We are looking at doing the advertisement in November,” Sinatra said. “We will list the specific qualifications [we want], and put in a description of the community and the high school. We have identified a number of associations, an educational newsletter, the New York Times, the Star-Ledger, certain online websites, and Columbia University [Teacher's College] (wiki) where I have a networking system. Then we are looking for December to be the collection of the information on candidates, though we could extend that deadline.”

After advertising the position, the district will then interview candidates, and as part of the process will ask for a portfolio of information including a resume, a list of professional accomplishments, and references.

“We will also ask for any other things they think would support the job qualifications we will have provided,” Sinatra said. “We would also ask for a writing sample. In the past, we have given people two types of writing samples, one on the spot and one they could research on their own. The Board of Education will be involved all along the way.”

Sinatra has said that the selection process should be completed by April 1, 2010, with the new principal formally starting July 1.

Last year, while hiring for the position of Campbell School principal, the board did not question applicants until the final three candidates had been vetted by the superintendent and a committee of several other administrators and teachers.

However, exactly how and when the BOE would interview candidates this time around was a focus of some debate at last week’s meeting. Some board members want to follow the same general procedure as before, while others want to see resumes of each candidate right from the beginning of the process.

Board members Devra Golbe, Dan Benderly, Ben Small, and Fran Brennan are in favor of following a similar procedure as the one used for the selection of Campbell School Principal Florence Carter, while board members Rose DeVries and Jackie Gibson want the board to help directly review candidates right from the outset by doing things such as reviewing resumes and sitting in on initial interviews.

Both sides offered reasoning for their differing points of view.

“I have thought about this for a long time, and I think we should leave the hiring process to the professionals in our district,” said board member Devra Golbe. “I don’t think [the board] has the expertise to hire a high school principal. What I know from hiring in my own field is that it is not easy. My preference is to let the staff do their jobs because I think they know what they are doing. I think our superintendent has put together teams of people in the past who have done a great job of filling vacancies. When the superintendent brings a few candidates to the board we will say yes or no at that time.”

“The other thing that concerns me is the interview process,” Golbe said. “In a good interview, you have to move the candidate off his prepared schpheel to find out what he is really about. I don’t think I, or most people, have the expertise to do that. Even attending an interview silently would be counter-productive, and the candidates would be less frank and comfortable if there are more people in the room, particularly if those people are not professional educators. Our educators will also be more guarded in those conversations.”

“We recently went through a hiring process for [Campbell School] principal,” said Benderly. “I don’t see any reason to deviate from that procedure. The procedure we followed for Mrs. Carter was that the administration went through the process with the paper screening… and we set certain criteria and characteristics. [Superintendent Sinatra] brought us three very good candidates, and together we chose from those finalists. I don’t see any reason we should change from that established procedure. You look at… the hires Mrs. Sinatra has made, I would say we are pretty happy with them as a whole. I don’t see any reason to change at this point what seems to be working.”

“We need to have a broad sweeping search,” said Small. “The administration should do the selection of the candidates based on that pool. The board should be involved in interviewing the finalists, not the initial 15 to 20. We have had a number of discussions including the Superintendent’s Forum, phone calls, email, walking throughout the town in learning from the public as to what they want. The public’s involvement should be limited to where it has been thus far, but we should incorporate that into what we have already gathered. I think we are very fortunate that we have so many people who are so interested, and we are fortunate enough to have an extremely competent school administration.”

Small also said that the board had researched 60 other school districts around New Jersey to see how they conducted their principal selection processes.

“Based on what other 60 other districts are doing, we are not veering from what most towns are doing,” he said. “We have found that the administration, board, and in some cases, PTO presidents were involved in the selection committee, but they did not incorporate feedback from the board of education and the public like we have done in these open forums.”

During the screening process in these districts, “maybe one or two included parents,” while during the interview process, “10 out of 60 included parents, and they were mainly PTO Presidents,” said Business Administrator Michael Harvier.

But board members Rose DeVries and Jackie Gibson had differing opinions.

DeVries wants to see the resumes of all the candidates considered as well as be able to sit in on interviews from an earlier stage in the process, not just in the final group of three or five.

“I believe we should have the ability to see all the resumes of the candidates being interviewed,” DeVries said. “If we get 100 candidates, if it is narrowed down to 15 to 20 people, then that is not an unrealistic request to read the resumes of all the people. That will give us a lot of information on how [Superintendent Sinatra] narrows it down. It will help me see how the process went and how the decision was made between the candidates. The three finalists aren’t enough. I don’t just want to see the last three resumes and then announce the best one. I want to know how we got to these three people and how all the other people were eliminated. We should read all the resumes of the people being interviewed because then our vote will be an educated one.”

“My personal opinion is that I would like to see board members in from the very beginning,” Gibson said. “I would be more comfortable with a few board members on the [interview] committee. It is a process of discussing it together for what is an appropriate choice. You can’t do that by giving someone instructions since what they think you meant and what you actually meant may not end up being the same thing.”

Final decisions on the principal selection process and the board’s precise level of involvement will be decided as the year goes on.

“We have plenty of time to decide, as we are at the beginning of the process,” said board president Terry Kohl. “Our ongoing role in the process will continue to be discussed at our meetings.”

The “more” that Manley was suggesting is the formation of a finance sub-committee, under the Borough Council, that would be composed of three councilmen and the mayor. It would meet monthly over the year to brainstorm and discuss ideas and issues relating to the borough’s finances. The committee would have an advisory role only with no regulatory or oversight function over any borough department or official but would give borough officials a regular opportunity to discuss the borough’s finances year-round and not just during budget adoption time.

Manley said that the current way of discussing Metuchen’s finances does not allow for enough “debate or deliberation” where the council can “explore the ideas and talk about them.”

“I think if we had a body that was responsible for this on a more permanent basis we can begin to flesh out some of this,” he said.

Manley listed Pompton Lakes (wiki) and Madison (wiki) as examples of two municipalities with a borough form of government that have such standing finance committees. He said he used their ordinances on the matter to help him craft his suggestion.

However, the idea was met with skepticism from several councilmen.

Councilman Richard Weber suggested alternatives to a standing finance committee, such as having Borough Administrator William Boerth and the borough’s auditors present their findings to the council on a more regular basis.

“We do have auditors who we pay to do quarterly reports,” Weber said. “Maybe we should bring these people in more frequently to report to us what’s going on… so that it engages all of us to talk about these things. As [Bill Boerth] is starting to prepare the budget, maybe we should ask Bill what he has been working on the last two weeks and where he is going. It may not be easy for him to do, but if he just gives us a report on what he has been working on, it might be easier to make policy.”

The specific arguments against creating a standing finance committee were as follows:

• Is a finance committee necessary and would it add anything new to how Metuchen’s government currently functions?

“The bigger question I have is, why would we need it?” said councilman Peter Cammarano. “You are creating a committee of four people out of seven when we seem to be functioning fairly well as a group. I don’t understand where this is coming from, particularly because we are getting into areas that are executive or administrative responsibilities. In the normal course of our form of government, we have an administrator, we have assigned them duties, and we have to let him do his job”

“Quite frankly, I don’t see the need for it,” said councilman Richard Dyas. “We have a team of people who we pay to do this. I feel this is overkill really. I feel very strongly that [Bill Boerth] has done a wonderful job for the 22 or 23 years that he has been here. I think he submits excellent budgets.”

• Would a finance committee go against the borough’s ordinances and/or conflict with the work of the business administrator?

“Many of the proposed finance committee concepts are already assigned to [the business administrator] by ordinance,” said Cammarano. “The borough code spells out the duties and responsibilities of the administrator. Establishing a standing committee that would interfere with the existing borough code would be problematic.”

• Would a finance committee make things more or less fair and transparent?

“One of the things I did after receiving this was I checked with several former councilmen,” Mayor Thomas Vahalla said. “The administrator position was established in the early 1970s because… there would be one or two people doing things, with things being done behind closed doors, and then brought to the whole to vote on. I think it is very important that we continue having the discussion here with everyone’s input. We should learn from the history on why they established the administrator’s position. It didn’t become one clique or one group that was presenting something or pushing something.”

In other words, quite simply: will such a committee allow members of the council to more easily, more fairly, and on a more regular basis, discuss their ideas on how to better manage Metuchen’s finances? Is one necessary and why?

Manley may need to more specifically address the above questions in order to receive more support from the council for a standing finance committee.
–

Below is the detailed suggestion for a finance committee presented by Manley at the Sept. 21 Borough Council meeting. It has not been formally introduced as an ordinance and may be revised in the future if and when the council revisits the issue:

A finance committee for the Borough of Metuchen shall:
1. be a standing committee of the Borough Council;
2. be appointed by the Mayor with advice and consent of the council;
3. be made up of three council members, with one selected as the chair;
4. include the Mayor in an ex-officio role;
5. meet monthly or at a greater frequency if required by workload;
6. report verbally to the council at least monthly via the chair’s report;
7. determine the need and nature of written financial reports to the council;
8. not have any binding authority for the borough or council;
9. have a term of one year expiring on Dec. 31 of each calendar year.

A finance committee would be responsible for:
1. the coordination of departmental budgets and the preparation of budgetary figures relating to the activities mentioned and the final preparation, explanation and continuing supervision of the entire municipal budget;
2. serving as the liaison between the council and the municipal auditor and with any other governmental body or organization on fiscal matters;
3. receive, review and present to the council the proposed budget of all borough-appointed boards and committees;
4. overseeing that all departments are in conformance with state statutes and good auditing practices;
5. all matters pertaining to any insurance coverage of the borough;
6. continually seeking and reviewing all possible departmental cost-cutting measures and revenue-generating activities of the borough;
7. continually seeking and reviewing intra- and inter-local shared services possibilities
          a) the finance committee can service as a liaison to the Board of Education.