TOWNSHIP OF WEST ORANGE

66 MAIN STREET, WEST ORANGE, N.J. 07052

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

ROBERT D. PARISI Mayor Tel: (973) 325-4100 Fax: (973) 669-0238 Email: Mayor@westorange.org RParisi@westorange.org

January 29, 2014

The conversation surrounding local government takes many forms. At any time, government may be counted on to help keep the town clean, to provide recreation for our children, to keep roads safe for transportation, to provide support when we are ill or to provide the blanket of security that we all count on from our Emergency Services. There are times when we simultaneously want government to solve our problems and yet, to stay out of our lives. Navigating that fine line and keeping it affordable is the job we are tasked with each year. To insure our residents are protected, our neighborhoods remain a source of pride and that government helps to foster our peaceful existence but never hinder it. We find ourselves connected, against the backdrop of our Townships rich history, great schools, beautiful homes, and our tree lined streets. Streets that may take us out into the world in pursuit of lifes adventures, but more importantly, bring us back home together, as neighbors. We are a community of great spirit, conviction and are blessed with hardworking people, volunteering their time and expertise to serve our Planning and Zoning Boards, our Auxiliary Police force, our CERT Team, our commissions and countless organizations that breathe life into our small piece of the world, making a big difference in peoples lives and inspiring each of us to fulfill our lifes promise. Each initiative and each step we take as the Administration is with the guidance, support and input of our municipal council. I have been proud to work with them and the Township continues to benefit from their contributions and with their leadership. Council President Sue McCartney and Council members Patty Spango, Victor Cirilo, Jerry Guarino and Joe Krakoviak will continue to work together to improve the services we deliver to the residents and how we deliver them. It has been my pleasure to work with each of you and I will look forward to all we can continue to accomplish together.

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For all the services local government provides, there are none we notice more as residents than that of the Department of Public Works -- picking up the fallen leaves, maintaining our parks, fixing pot holes or plowing the snow. They do not always get noticed for their efforts, and these hard working men ask for attention even less. No one has better demonstrated this quiet determination like Glenn McCarthy. Glenn served his Township in Public Works for 34 years and in the position of Superintendent for the last 12 years. He enjoyed the respect of the men who worked for him, his colleagues, and more importantly, the residents he served. Glenn has retired this year to spend time with his wife Ann Marie and his family. The Township is still exploring ways to replace him and the leadership he provided but Glenn, on behalf of the Administration, I can say replacing you will not be easy. Thanks for your years of service and we wish you only the best of luck and many years of a happy retirement. Nothing is more behind the scenes than the work of an architect. None of us ever see the struggle with pen and paper, or know the time they spend laboring with their craft. No one relished that role of being behind the scenes like Gerry Huegel. Gerry was the Township architect for over 23 years. He was a distinguished man, from a generation lost to time, with old fashioned principles, charm and work ethic. At 84 years of age, he still came to work each day and still put in whatever time was necessary to get the job done. Gerry Huegel passed away this past summer, but his contributions to the many Townships buildings, parks and projects that we drive by each day, and he lent his expertise to, will forever mark our community and will forever remind us of the important life he led. Joining us this morning are Gerrys daughters, Stefanie & Claudia. Thank you for joining us and know that this Township will never forget your father. For all the efforts of local government, nothing defines the character of a community like the efforts and contributions of our volunteers and no one defines character and a community volunteer like Greg Bullock. Greg quickly made West Orange his home after moving here to raise his family and has been an important part of many aspects of life here since then. He has served as a Commissioner of the Mountain Top League and has coached traveling soccer. But more importantly then instilling his love of sports on our children, he has made contributions that have impacted all of us and will impact residents of this community forever. Greg is an original member, and continues to serve, the West Orange Human Relations Commission. For over 20 years, the HRC has led the way to fostering communication and harmony among our diverse population and is looked to as a model for insuring that harmony and his contributions have been vital to that success.

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He is a founding member of the African Heritage Organization, an organization that almost 15 years later, still works to tutor our youth, provide scholarships for deserving students and promotes African American culture. And if all that is not enough, Greg has served as a member of our Zoning Board since 2004. But for all his contributions to our community, Greg and his wife Linda have been best known as outspoken advocates for our public schools. Greg and Lindas three children are all graduates, with honors, from our school system. Gregs and Lindas contributions to our schools helped to pave the way for their success and of the students we celebrate today. In addition to any committee, or volunteer effort that worked to make our schools better, Greg served on the Middle School Configuration Taskforce, which worked to shape the current structure of our school system. He has done what we all aspire to. He has lived a life that has mattered to those around him and his contributions have made his community a better place to live. He is low key and unassuming, but of strong will and is a man of purpose. He is our Citizen of the Year, Mr. Greg Bullock. It is not hard for any of us to accept that police work, in this increasingly complicated world, may be the most difficult job in all of government. As in any difficult job, being proactive is important in achieving success. The idea of Community Policing is the proactive approach to this demanding profession, a concept brought to life by Police Sergeant John Morella. In 2000, only a few years after joining our department, he worked to develop the one-week Junior Police Academy program. This program each year sets new standards for student participation. Sergeant Morella was the initial School Resource Officer in our high school and is the co-founder of the New Jersey Association of School Resource Officers. He worked to create the state mandatory training for officers to serve in this role and was recognized as National School Resource Officer of the Year in 2001. Two years ago, Sergeant Morella was assigned to head the Community Services Unit working from the Washington Street Police Sub-station. Though the CSU has been an important part of that neighborhood for over a decade, Sergeant Morella took it upon himself to get the Sub-station renovated and to improve the services they could provide to the students and residents of that neighborhood. He secured contributions from Home Depot, having them donate time and material to complete a total renovation of the Substation at no cost. He worked with community groups to secure donations for new computers and worked with the Township to secure funding to construct a new basketball court at the Sub-station, breathing new life into the after school tutoring and community outreach programs that are offered there.

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In addition to his efforts at the substation, Sergeant Morella designed, secured funding, organized and coordinated an Active Shooter Drill this past year at Liberty Middle School. This drill mobilized dozens and dozens of emergency personnel from various neighboring departments as well as Board of Education staff and local media. The success of this drill has been universally praised and nationally recognized. Sergeant Morella has been awarded nine Police Department commendations in his career. He has demonstrated a strong determination for protecting this community and a real ability for getting things done. He is respected equally by his peers and by the community he proudly serves. He is a valuable part of this department and he is our Employee of the Year -- Police Sergeant John Morella. For all the wonderful things that are happening at the Sub-station, there remains one significant spirit missing among the newly-renovated walls. This year our department, and more importantly, our community lost Police Officer Timmy Groves. Timmy spent his entire life living in the same house just a few blocks from the substation and spent most of his career working for the Community Services Unit and serving the very neighborhood he grew up in. This coming spring, as a sign of our respect, a permanent reminder of what he meant to West Orange and as the final piece of the renovations, the Sub-station will be rededicated as the Timothy Groves Community Sub-station so that future generations will know of his life, his work and the legacy he left behind. Taxes, taxes, taxes -- ask ten residents what is the most important thing to them about local government, eight will tell you taxes, but all ten, without question, would tell you that taxes are too high to begin with. It is the age old dilemma about government in any time, at any level, in any town. As Americans, we want more of what government can do but expect to pay less for getting it. This very struggle plays out in our municipal building each year. Each year we struggle with meeting the expectations of our residents, to deliver the services local government is responsible for, and the next year, we do it all over again. Each year provides opportunity to find new ways to deliver services and we hope with each day to discover new ways to do it for less money. The last four years has presented many challenges unprecedented in many ways nationwide. But we have made great strides in West Orange over the past three years to weather these challenges. We have restructured how we operate. We have outsourced some services. We have privatized others. We have reduced the number of employees by 17 percent. We have reduced spending, and reduced our overall taxpayer guaranteed debt. Since 2010, the average tax increase across the State of New Jersey has been 7.2 percent. Here in West Orange it is among the lowest in the state during that same time, at only 1.6

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percent. And in 2013, for the first time since the economic meltdown several years ago, real estate sale prices in West Orange increased from the year before by over 5 percent. But the struggle continues. Our town may forever be burdened by our taxes, but they are not distinct to West Orange. We will not let the challenges ahead discourage us or let the successes we have celebrated spoil us either. There are no easy answers to balancing the conflicting priorities of providing essential services while keeping costs down but we have created a blueprint these last few years for overcoming them. Whatever challenges do confront us we will address them honestly. Whatever problems we uncover along the way we will overcome them together. Taxes may be a reality in life but they should never define our life. The success of our Police Sub-Station on Washington Street is well documented. From being a focal point for children in the neighborhood, to having police officers be part of the community, to being the source of the partnership between both. For over 15 years the Sub-station and the men and women that have worked there, have reshaped police work and the impact community policing has had in our Township. In 2014, we will work to duplicate this success in the Valley. The Township recently acquired, for $1 dollar, the property at the corner of Mitchell Street and Valley Road that has been a vacant gas station for a generation. Over the last several years, the Township had worked with the owner and took advantage of grant funding to remediate the propertys environmental concerns. This year, the property will be renovated and will be transformed into a permanent police Sub-Station to serve the neighborhood. In addition to bringing an old, vacant property back to life, we will bring a visible and permanent police presence to the Valley neighborhood. Of course, serving a new Sub-station will require resources -- specifically manpower -- and we know that resources have been scarce. In addition to a reduction in the staffing table of organization over the last several years, our Police Department has been hit with injuries, illness and a number of retirements. In hopes of beginning to restore this lost manpower, we will welcome two new officers to our ranks in the coming weeks as they graduate from the Police Academy and we are in the process of preparing additional applicants. In the next several weeks we will be sending 10 new hires to begin their training and expect to have them as fully working officers by the second half of 2014. In addition to creating a permanent police Sub-station in the valley, this year promises to bring redevelopment to the Valley and the Harvard Press property. This property, nearly 4 acres in total between the Orange and West Orange side, has been vacant and in disrepair

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since I was a child. This approved project will combine millions of dollars of private funding along with federally subsidized funding to introduce a residential community to this longtime abandoned property. After years of discussion and review, this project will be the first step in what we hope will be a multi-year, multi-project re-making of several old and vacant industrial buildings that have plagued the neighborhood. This project brings with it a commitment from NJ Transit to invest significant dollars in the Highland Avenue station on Scotland Road on the Orange side that will improve this station for our townships many commuters. Luna Stage and the entire Valley Arts District have brought energy and enthusiasm to the Valley. This new project will bring significant investment and will be the springboard for future projects to this important neighborhood. I am sure a little over a year ago most of us had never heard the word aggregation before let alone did we know what it meant. But the best local government can do for all our residents is to explore any and all ways to reduce the costs of the services we all require. Aggregation provided us the means for reducing the costs of electricity that we all incur as homeowners. Once the idea of energy aggregation was accepted, we thoroughly reviewed what was required by state law and retained a consultant to navigate this process. After fulfilling the requirements of state law, and reviewing what the guidelines meant to each of us as residents, we successfully secured a contract for the supply of electricity for our homeowners. This contract will begin in the coming weeks and over the course of the next 21 months, township residents will see a reduction in their electricity bill totaling $1.8 million dollars town-wide. It is our hope in 2014 to take the next steps in this process and explore aggregating the supply of natural gas for our residents. We are stronger when we take advantage of our large numbers for the purchase of anything and we will continue to explore ways to reduce the costs of these necessary expenses for residents by leveraging our strength in numbers. Though the concept of energy aggregation may be new, using our residential size for securing the best possible price for our community is not. West Orange has relied on our size and numbers for decades for securing our garbage disposal contracts. While some communities in New Jersey still require their residents to arrange their own garbage collection, West Orange decided years ago that securing this private contract on behalf of the community was the most efficient and cost effective way to remove our household garbage. We re-affirmed that decision this past year as we once again solicited proposals for the new contract. This new contract brought the highly-anticipated, Single-Stream Comingled Recycling to our community and is already showing an increase in recycled materials. But best of all, despite the added benefit and convenience of Single-Stream recycling, this new

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garbage contract will reduce the costs for delivering this necessary service by $1 million dollars over next five years. None of us can turn on the television, the radio or scan the headlines on the Internet and not see stories about health insurance and the storm that surrounds it. Beyond all the noise it represents a very real need and expense for this community. As one of the Townships largest employers we have a contractual and moral obligation to provide health benefits to all our employees, our retirees and their families. But these growing costs have impacted us all as employee-related costs continue to take a bigger percentage of our municipal budget each year. Besides salaries, health insurance is the largest expense we have and is a necessary fixture in each budget, each year, before anything else can be funded. In order to better manage this cost, the Township has taken the steps to create a Health Insurance Fund, a HIF, by partnering with other Townships. Insurance is the law of large numbers. By merging our insured population with that of the Townships of Parsippany & Bloomfield, we will reduce our overall risk by expanding our insured pool and by doing so will reduce our costs. We have been exploring this process for almost a year and have been thankful for the support of our Collective Bargaining Units as well as support of the Council. This process is awaiting State approval later this year, but we have already taken the first step in this process and moved our health plan to a self-insured platform. We anticipate a reduction in our health insurance costs of close to $700,000 in 2014 and anticipate another reduction of as much as 5 percent upon State approval of this plan. There are limited ways to reduce the cost of health insurance while maintaining contractually protected benefit levels. But this arrangement, in what represents a real and meaningful shared services partnership, will honor our employee contracts, will protect our employees and their families but more importantly, will provide a 13 percent reduction this year in the anticipated costs for our taxpayers. Local business is the lifeline of any community. We celebrate that today, in the presence of many of our Townships strongest small business owners and with the generosity of our host, our Chamber of Commerce. Local business provides convenience for residents. They fill our malls and storefronts, they provide jobs and they provide the network of stability that keeps us viable -- keeps us strong. For as residents support our local businesses they in turn support landlords, taxes, support each other and support the community. We welcomed many new businesses to this family of commerce this past year. Many are in planning stages and many more are ready to begin construction soon. We are proud to be welcoming Chipotle and Retro Fitness to our community in 2014. Both these well-known and respected franchises are under construction and making significant investment in our

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Township. They both will be opening to the public in the coming weeks and months in the K-Mart Shopping Center. Additionally, recently approved before our Zoning Board, LA Fitness will break ground on construction of a new building and their new West Orange facility later this year on Rooney Circle next to Essex Green. Time may change trends, may change what consumers want and are willing to pay for, but regardless of these trends what remains a constant is that investment in our community remains a strong indication of our strength and a business owners confidence in the ability to secure return on their investment. Property owners, whether business or homeowners, invested over $54 million dollars in new construction and renovations to property here in West Orange during 2013, this in the form of over 2,700 construction permits issued through our Building Department -- an increase of over 400 from the year before. West Orange is blessed with many strong businesses, strong opportunities for new business and a strong support system for business owners. We are proud as local government to be part of that support system. As a rule, whenever possible, we hire local contractors and rely on local vendors to support our efforts in serving our residents. This past year with the help of the Chamber and the Downtown Alliance we launched the Shop West Orange Property Tax rebate card. With only a few months since officially launching we have over 1,000 residents registered with the card and over 30 local businesses signed on to support the program, providing discounts to those registered. With each purchase residents not only support local businesses but they earn a reduction on local property taxes. Shop Local must be more than just a promise if we are to succeed as a business community. As a local government it is our responsibility to support our business community and to create an atmosphere where all our businesses can succeed. This year we present a challenge to you, our business leaders. Working with our high school we are supporting the Career and Technical Education Department in providing our students intern opportunities here in their community. From accounting to cooking, early child development to architecture and everything in between, the business community here in town provides endless opportunities for our students and it is our hope that you will respond to this challenge, join in this program and help in sharing your expertise and experience with our students. Help them to realize the same success in their careers as you have enjoyed in yours. Each year while most of us are focused on our jobs, our families or enjoying the recreational and artistic opportunities here in town, local government is working to improve all those same aspects of our lives. Much of what we do gets little attention but is no less deserving of acknowledgement. We upgraded our purchasing software in Town Hall which is helping

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to make each department more efficient and we have made the convenience of online property tax payments available to our taxpayers. We welcomed the NJ Arts Incubator to their new home at OSPAC. We added a new, fifth route to our already successful Commuter Shuttle Program and we replaced the athletic turf at Lincoln Field, the most utilized field in town. As another step in our impressive athletic complex at our high school, we added lights to Suriano Field, welcoming in Friday night football and the large, enthusiastic community gatherings that come with that. In 2014 we will introduce a new streamlined construction permitting process and will introduce a new street resurfacing program for the first time in several years. We will embark on a beautification effort in the Pleasantdale section of town and will complete construction on the new walking path park on the Ridgeway Avenue campus deeded to the Township several years ago. We will be sending six new fire recruits to the Academy for training and we will shortly replace old buses with four new buses for our Commuter Shuttle and Senior Citizen transportation services. In 2014 we will be adding cameras to additional neighborhoods to the Police Surveillance camera system first implemented last year. With the help of Essex County we will add the soccer and baseball field located at Turtle Back Rock to our list of available fields for our growing youth programs. Essex County has renovated the field at their expense and will allow our programs to use the facility. And, perhaps most exciting of all, the Main Street Redevelopment project will begin construction in the coming months, bringing tens of millions of dollars in investment to our downtown, finally bringing this project from the drawing board to our Main Street. We could close our eyes, dream of all that could be different, wallow in what may be wrong or a little less than perfect but we get lost in the agony of that. In that darkness we would lose sight of the wonder that is before us each day among our families, neighbors, our neighborhoods -- the wonder scattered among the two hills of the Watching Mountains we all call home. In any given day we can be inspired with the people that surround us, we find schools to educate us, houses of worship that soothe our souls, beautiful parks to soothe our spirit and friends and family that help to smooth out lifes rough edges. Life is not meant to be easy it is meant to be lived. Not with figure-pointing or blame, not with free passes, but with action, with energy, with emotion, with the responsibility to pursue and fulfill the promise of own dreams wherever they take us and with the commitment to make them possible by the will of our own character and by the strength of our own hand.

I have been honored to serve as your Mayor. West Orange is a special community, not from the strength of local government but from the strength of those that make their homes

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here. Government may maintain order but the depth of who we are as people is found in our ability not to be taken care of but to care for each other. We have weathered storms, overcome challenges, survived and prospered for over 150 years as a Township. We owe ourselves, the next generation and the past to honor those that came before us and those that will follow. To take the blessings that have been left to us, care for them, and protect them for our children, the children of West Orange and their children that follow. I believe in that -- that a community is more than rows and rows of pretty houses, more than 12 square miles on a map, I believe in West Orange and I believe in you. Thank you for listening.

Robert D. Parisi Mayor

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