Two win seats on Borough Council

Two residents were elected to the Glen Ridge Council.

Neither was challenged; one is a long-serving member while the other is a new face.

David Lefkovits will be serving, although not consecutively, his fifth term. He said over time, a person becomes a better representative of the people and learns to see the bigger picture of governing.

He noted that the borough has several challenges on which he would like to focus. One is traffic safety.

“There have been a few incidents on Ridgewood Avenue with kids making contact with cars,” he said. “At Baldwin and Wildwood, there are temporary traffic barriers.

They are traffic rods to prevent cars from making tight turns.”

Anything permanent, at those locations, he said, would be bollards or pedestrian islands.

“We have to work with the county for some kind of installation that narrows the roadway so that if a car is stopped, another car cannot go around it,” he said.

The county, he said, controls Ridgewood, Watchung and Bloomfield avenues and that 15% of Glen Ridge property tax goes to the county. He said the county has its own priorities and eventually they will coincide with those of Glen Ridge. He cited the absence of a left-turn signal at Ridgewood Avenue, where it crosses Bloomfield Avenue.

“Bloomfield Avenue is a main thoroughfare for the county,” he said. “The timing of traffic lights is a science. It has a ripple effect for the county. The left-turn signal will get done. We have to be insistent and patient.”

He is also interested in safe routes to schools.

“A lot of that is related to management of Ridgewood Avenue,” he said. “But the big concern, what I’m worried about, is the long-term financial health of the borough.

Material has gotten more expensive. Interest rates are higher. And there’s the impact of retirement costs. We have to look at the forecast for employee retirement and medical benefits.”

He said what changed radically in the last four years was the price of materials. At one time, it was pretty much flat.

“Anything that has to be manufactured and shipped has gone up,” he said. “Managing around that is definitely challenging.”

He likes that the council now has three men and three women and the mayor is a woman.

The second newly-elected council member is Lori Jeane Moody. It is her first term.

“I care about this town,” she said. “I’ve been living here for 17 years and have served as a volunteer. I believe if you care about something, you take care of it.”

Moody has been a volunteer on the borough environmental committee, the last three as chairwoman. She has served on the Forest Avenue Home and School Association
and on the Glen Ridge Civic Conference Committee.

“When I was on the CCC, people asked me to run for the council but I didn’t think I had done enough in service for the town,” she said.

But the CCC afforded her a good look at what it takes to be a successful candidate and what the council’s business is all about.

As for challenges facing Glen Ridge, Moody said like a lot of other institutions that rely on volunteer help, their burn-out rate has to be considered.

“And as a region, we have an aging infrastructure,” she said. “We’re going to have to assess our infrastructure to keep our way of life. We’ve done a great job with our resources and have to continue that.”

Moody is also concerned with the climate.

“We have more and more rain events,” she said.”I was living here when Superstorm Sandy struck and was without power for a time. We have to think of hardening our infrastructure with climate in mind.”

Traffic safety is also a concern.

“People are zooming up and down Ridgewood Avenue,” she said.

Moody is looking forward to exploring the idea of Leading Pedestrian Intervals. This means that all traffic has a red light allowing pedestrians access to all crosswalks.

“Other communities have this,” she said.

  Council, Glen Ridge