League of Women Voters
The New Jersey Chapter of the League of Women Voters polls candidates annually with compelling and thought provoking questions. Here is my response to the questions they posed this year:
What are the major challenges facing your municipality and how would you propose to address them if elected?
We have been suffering from a public service infrastructure that hasn’t been properly maintained or upgraded in years, causing a significant disruption to the lives of our residents and potentially impacting the values of our homes. As a Township Committee, we have the ability to amplify the voices of our residents and use the swing weight of local government to get results. For our electric provider, JCP&L, that means hosting public forums to raise concerns, as well as holding the utility responsible for maintaining and upgrading its local infrastructure, which we are currently pursuing. Simultaneously, we have convinced our local cable provider, Altice, to invest in upgrading the network that serves our community to Fiber-to-to-Home.
What qualifies you for this position, both personally and professionally?
In addition to the time I have already served, I bring a unique perspective to the job given my experience in the technology and utility industries. I understand not only how the infrastructure works, but more importantly, how larger organizations assess capital investment opportunities. In addition, having served in executive capacities at both large companies and emerging firms, I have managed budgets, evaluated financial choices and made difficult trade-off decisions. Our municipality resembles a small company in many ways, including the need to listen to customers (our residents) and always do more with less, which my private sector experience has trained me to do. My on-the-job training is complete, as opposed to starting on Day 1.
What factors are critical to the quality of life in your municipality and what would you do to improve or preserve them?
Low taxes and preventing overdevelopment are the two factors that work hand-in-hand in preserving Bedminster. In the case of the former, that means ensuring that we are utilizing our limited tax dollars wisely, and not pursuing wasteful or redundant spending. It also implies carefully maintaining the taxes collected from businesses, which help to alleviate the tax burden on our residents. While developers would love to pursue expansion strategies at the expense of our farms and open space, the quality-of-life impact would certainly outweigh any potential tax benefit. As a result, we need to hold the line by engaging in careful land management and planning work with our partners at the state and county level to make sure Bedminster remains an ideal place to live, work and play.
