WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange Township Council approved a bond ordinance appropriating $375,000 to cover the cost of traffic and parking improvements at Gregory Elementary School on its second and final reading during the council’s Feb. 9 meeting.
The ordinance — which was passed by a 4-1 vote, with Councilman Joe Krakoviak voting against it — specifies that $357,140 of the total amount will be issued in bonds and notes, with the remaining $17,860 paid as the down payment required by the Local Bond Law. As such, the township’s gross debt will be increased by $357,140 to reflect the authorization of the bonds and notes.
The funds will pay for the creation of a bus loop in front of the school as well as the addition of approximately 23 new parking spaces for staff. Additionally, some parallel or angular parking spots may be included in the bus loop. Overall, roughly 25 to 30 parking stalls will likely be added to the school.
The ordinance’s passage should please the township officials who advocated for the measure, which was recommended by the West Orange Police Department’s Traffic Bureau after the bureau, Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Rutzky and members of the town administration met with Gregory parents and staff to hear their concerns. But the ordinance — along with the resolution establishing an interlocal agreement between the township and the school district that was also passed that evening — did not come without debate, as several residents spoke out both for and against its approval.
Ken Alper, chairman of the Gregory PTA’s traffic safety committee, urged the council to vote in favor of the improvements because the school’s traffic and parking situation has become a hazard and a nuisance. Alper said the presence of buses on Lowell Avenue coupled with the narrow streets near the school and the limited parking in the area have made dropping students off extremely difficult, with many children having to exit vehicles in the middle of roads. The only way to help this issue is to implement the changes being paid for by the bonds.
“(The township’s solutions) are exactly what are needed to keep our kids safe and alleviate the gridlock that currently exists,” Alper said. “I ask the council to approve these measures tonight so we can avoid the tragedy that so many of us feel is otherwise inevitable.”
Susan McAbee certainly knows the danger of the area, telling the council that she has twice almost been hit by cars on Walker Road. Though she is not in favor of the council paying for school projects, she said this problem goes beyond the Board of Education and affects the whole township, which is why she believed the ordinance should be passed. Akil Khalfani also advocated for the ordinance, even suggesting that additional improvements, such as sidewalks, be installed.
Mariel Clemenson, on the other hand, said the township should not be paying for the improvements — though taxpayers fund both the school and municipal budgets, Clemenson said the school taxes have gotten “out of control,” which is why the district needs to better manage its finances rather than rely on the township for funds. Likewise, Clare Silvestri stressed that if the township starts paying for school projects, it is only going to harm residents down the road.
“The school board has its own budget and it has its own properties and its own responsibilities and this is clearly a school board issue,” Silvestri said. “We need to be careful about where we’re spending our money. We talk about promoting the township, and our property taxes have a real impact on our property values. And if we’re not being prudent in how we spend our money, we’re hurting all of the township with raising taxes and lowering property values.”
Windale Simpson additionally expressed concern that the township and district were circumventing a state law requiring a public referendum to approve bonds issued by a school district by allowing the town to issue them instead, pointing out that West Orange has also approved bonds for school projects in the past, such as for the new baseball bleachers. Simpson even read a 2013 letter from then-director of the New Jersey Division of Local Government Services Thomas Neff to then-education Commissioner Christopher Cerf regarding his belief that West Orange and other municipalities were doing just that.
But Council President Victor Cirilo said that letter did not apply to this case because the township is paying the debt service. Mayor Robert Parisi also emphasized that the township is not doing anything illegal, saying the Gregory improvements are a public safety issue rather than just a school issue and the township is doing the equivalent of building a new road in front of the school.
Still, Krakoviak agreed with Simpson that the improvements are really a school issue that should be voted on by the public. He also strongly felt that issuing the bonds was a mistake considering the town’s current financial situation. Though he acknowledged that West Orange has increased its short-term borrowing and reduced its long-term debt since 2010, the councilman said he did not think it was smart to increase the debt service by issuing bonds when the debt service has already increased by $1.85 million — from $4.95 million to $6.8 million — in that same time period. Since 2010, he said the township’s issued debt has risen by $8.8 million, from $49.7 million to $58.5 million, while its authorized debt including all bonds passed at that meeting grew by $18.7 million — from $59.6 million to $78.3 million.
And no one knows whether federal interest rates will increase as happened recently, Krakoviak said.
For the time being, Parisi said the interest rates are historically low, so the township will have to pay less than 1 percent on the notes in the first five years after borrowing. While it would be ideal not to borrow any money, the mayor stressed that a municipal government has to take care of its people, whether it means plowing the roads or buying fire trucks. And he said sometimes that obligation requires a municipality to issue bonds, whether one wants to or not.
“You can’t just not govern,” Parisi said. “The reality is, unfortunate as it is, you’ve got to borrow money sometimes.”
Most of the other council members agreed that the ordinance should be passed, with Councilman Jerry Guarino and Councilwoman Susan McCartney emphasizing their belief that the improvements should be made as soon as possible before anyone is hurt. Councilwoman Michelle Casalino also pointed out that West Orange uses school facilities for recreation events at no cost, so making these types of improvements are necessary for everyone in the community.
Now that the ordinance has been approved, Cirilo told the West Orange Chronicle that the job will soon go out to bid, and that the work should begin at the end of the school year. The council president also said that the school district is actually paying for the project’s soft expenses, such as the cost of the architectural drawings, though he was not aware of exactly how much that would amount to overall.
And while the ordinance proved controversial, Cirilo said he believes the council made the right decision in passing it since the Gregory School’s traffic and parking problems have been a public safety hazard for years.
“We can’t wait until a tragedy happens,” Cirilo said in a Feb. 12 phone interview. “This is a safety issue that makes sense, and it shouldn’t be politicized.”
Krakoviak, however, said he was disappointed to see the ordinance passed, reiterating his belief that it should have been the residents who decided the matter. Additionally, he said the interlocal agreement created to carry out these improvements does not comply with New Jersey’s statute on shared services, which states that any such agreement between local entities should be used as a “technique to reduce local expenses funded by property taxpayers.”
Of course, Krakoviak also still feels that approving the ordinance was a wrong move for the township financially. He suggested that the township should behave differently the next time an issue like this one is raised.
“The township should comply with state law and stop helping the school district avoid the state law requiring voter approval for school-project bonding,” Krakoviak said in a Feb. 15 email. “The town has bonded millions of dollars for projects on school property — especially athletic facilities at the high school — over the last decade, avoiding voter referendum. This would have given citizens greater influence on the financial situation they subject themselves to, just as state law allows.
“From a larger perspective, the town needs to be a better job of prioritizing fiscal responsibility when it comes to spending and tax increases,” he added.
About the Author
