State of the Township Address...

been putting the capital funding away for more than 10 years for the meters and anticipate bringing in a contractor to install these meters. This will enable us to give better service to our water customers and ultimately do so with less manpower.

Nationwide, for a host of reasons, we have seen the increasing difficulties the police departments are having enforcing the law. We are fortunate in Denville. Outside of the recent auto thefts, which almost always are facilitated by people leaving their keys in the car, our number one complaint is cars speeding. We recognize the best way to reduce speeding is Police presence on the road. In the 2022 Budget we added a police officer and anticipate that shortly after the New Year, with the Police Academy complete, we will be at full complement. Not only will we see the additional officer on the road, but we will also see additional community policing in our downtown business district.

Starting in 2023, Denville will start utilizing state-of-the-art technology to perform parking enforcement in our downtown area. No longer will we chalk tires but instead will utilize a computerized License Plate Reading (“LPR”) system, which will be attached to a moving Police Department vehicle. Each time the vehicle drives down a street or through a parking lot (which could be multiple times each hour) the LPR tracks the amount of time a vehicle has been parked in a particular parking spot. If during any of the passes, a vehicle has been parked in a specific spot for a period of time exceeding the time limit, the system will notify the officer who can issue a violation.

Residents and business owners are advised that all day free parking is available in the Lower Bloomfield Avenue Parking Lot and the Church Street Parking Lot with 3-hour free parking available in the 1st Avenue Parking Lot and the Upper Bloomfield Avenue Parking Lot. Furthermore, daily, monthly, semi-annual and annual parking permits are available for sale in the Municipal Clerk’s Office.

We are constantly looking at ways to improve our efficiencies. To cut cost by eliminating a step in the process, a product or time in the process. Sometimes like with the water meters it might take years of planning and several other internal office changes that allows for a decrease in personal at retirement, when duties can be merged. One such example we may see in 2023 is a lock box system for utility payments, where utility bills are calculated and mailed by the Township but returned to a third-party provider who processes the payments, transfers the money and an account file to the Township.

2022 brought its challenges. Denville’s leadership worked our way through the supply chain shortages and price increases that were left by the aftermath of the COIVD-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the financial plan we have designed and implemented over the last decade of paying more with cash, paying down our debt, improving our ratable base and finding more grant opportunities has been executed successfully. We saw this fruit of our labor when Moody’s bestowed an Aaa Bond rating on the Township during the Pandemic. In September 2023, the final Bond payment will be made, the Town Hall will be paid for. This alone will result in a significant drop in our annual debt service payments and will put us in an even stronger financial position.

Any piece of land not classified as protected as preserved on our Open Space Inventory is a liability to the Township when Affordable Housing totals were being calculated during the past round. That is why the Town Council and I decided to sell 19 acres of Industrial-zoned land not on the Open Space Inventory. The Township obtained the property in the 1980s as part of a tax foreclosure. The property is located on Vanderhoof Ave and is parallel to Interstate 80 and will be an excellent ratable. At the auction held in September 2022, the high bid was accepted at $6.435 million dollars. The real estate closing is anticipated to occur in February 2023.

Once we close on the property, I will be asking the Council to adopt a formal policy limiting the use of the proceeds from the sale to paying off existing debt and funding future one-time capital purchases without new debt being authorized. We have created a plan that could put the Township in the position of being debt free by the end of the decade.

If managed properly, the use of this funding will provide the Township with a golden opportunity to improve its already exceptional long-term financial standing for at least the next decade. By establishing a formal policy, I want to ensure we don’t squander this opportunity.

We have been proactive in every area of our Budgeting, Fiscal Management, Planning our Infrastructure, Management of Personal and Technology. We have worked extremely hard to successfully manage all of the areas of the budget under our control. Municipalities are constantly in a position of trying to protect ourselves from what harm may be coming from the State of New Jersey. On Friday (December 30th) we just started getting the State Budget Numbers for 2023 and besides a 24% insurance increase in the State health insurance Premium. We are looking at $251,000 increase in our pension payment. So, these two-line items in the budget alone will have a significant impact on our Property Tax Bills. There are only so many line items in the budget we can control, despite our best efforts we enter the budget process with the State putting us in a significant hole.

Denville has fulfilled our 2015 court ordered Affordable Housing obligation and is maximizing the income off these developments for each of our utilities and funds. The 4th round of affordable housing obligations is 2 1/2 years away in 2025, or just 30 months and sadly, our Governor, Senate President and Assembly Speaker have not addressed it and have shown no interest in doing so.

Meanwhile we have taken everything we have learned from the 2015 and past rounds and are currently putting the finishing touches on updating our Master Plan. We are doing this in preparation for our 2025 constitutionally mandated Affordable Housing obligation process. In preparing the Master Plan, the Planning Board has done a great job of updated our vision of 21st century Denville. This vision does NOT forget our roots, heritage or the quant and charming downtown character that has made us Morris County’s favorite downtown destination year after year. I expect to have the Planning Board’s approval of the Master Plan sometime in March 2023.

We were all extremely disappointed when we heard of the closing, sale and demolition of Saint Francis Residential Community. Denville grew from a rural farming community with not much more to it than a Railroad and Canal, around Saint Francis. It would have been nice if the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother in Wisconsin gave Denville the opportunity to be part sale of the property.

However, we only learned about the sale after it was basically a “done deal.” Springpoint, who is the new owner of the Oaks and Saint Francis Property has always been a good member of our business community. I have had communications with the upper management. They know our concerns, desires, that at the end of the day we want them to have a great project that the people of Denville can join them in being equally proud about and is truly a win/win for the entire Denville continued from page 18 continued on page 20