Happy rainy Saturday, everyone. Do I know how to spend a Saturday afternoon or what? Next week’s Council Meeting is actually on Monday night (vs. the normal Tuesday). It will be held at 7:00pm in the Council Chambers at 205 Claremont Ave., broadcast on channel 34 and live streamed on the Township YouTube channel here. The agenda is light but I’ll highlight a few items as well as some other things going on in town, below.
Thank you, Tom Giblin
Our Assemblyman — Montclair’s Tom Giblin, has decided not to seek re-election. A veteran of the New Jersey Air National Guard, Mr. Giblin has had a long and illustrious career representing Montclair and contributing to public service in a variety of ways. In the short time I’ve known him, he’s always been incredibly kind to me and so clearly passionate about the work. I just want to take a brief moment to say thank you to him. Public service is not easy and he’s given his life to it; delivering much to Montclair in that time. Thank you, Tom.
The most important thing to me now is that Montclair remains well represented in the State Legislature so that my colleagues and I have a partner or partners to ensure we get our fair share of state resources. To that end, if you’re around (and a registered Democrat) please stop by Sunrise Bagels in Watchung Plaza from 11am – 2pm tomorrow (Sunday) to sign a petition to help make sure Alixon Collazos-Gill can get on the ballot for State Assembly to replace Mr. Giblin, alongside Senator Dick Codey and Assemblyman John McKeon. Those three will face off against Senator Nia Gill and former Montclair School Board Member Eve Robinson on June 7th in the New Jersey Democratic Primary.
Bikes & Boards Tomorrow
My goal tomorrow: get some exercise and don’t break my neck.
Join me and your neighbors for two great events centered on the bike and board culture in Montclair that we’re slowly trying to develop the infrastructure for. Armed with the giant scissors from the back of my car, I’m excited to join some of my colleagues, Skate Essex, U.S. Olympic Skateboard Team Captain Alexis Sablone and an army of skaters to cut the ribbon for the new skatepark at noon; after participating in the cool Bike Bus ride tomorrow morning. Come join us!
Montclair’s Budget – One Hundred Million Dollars
The draft 2023 budget is on the agenda for Monday night. Unfortunately I only received this $100,000,000 general appropriations budget yesterday from the Township and therefore cannot do all of the necessary due diligence that I believe is required of all of us, to review and heavily scrutinize the budget before Monday. I have a lot of questions and need time to work with staff and my colleagues to negotiate various pieces. Therefore, I’m withholding my support and asking my colleagues to table the budget for the time being.
DeCamp – No Update Yet
Unfortunately I don’t have a substantive update yet. But I have been in touch with elected officials or their staff at every level of government and many are working on this issue with a lot of ideas being kicked around. No surprise, Mikie Sherrill’s office has been all over this from a federal perspective. Congressman Payne’s office reached out to me on Thursday. My hope is that, absent federal aid, our state legislators are able to procure funding to keep DeCamp afloat for beyond April 7th, to give NJTransit the time it needs to continue to assess the capacity they may have to take over the routes and/or augment with additional rail service. I’m in touch with Assemblyman John McKeon and Senator Dick Codey — the only two State Legislators to reach back out to me to help, asking for that aid and for continued pressure to be put on NJTransit to advance a plan to fill this service void.
Lackawanna Plaza Update
For months now, I think most of you know we’ve been working on the Lackawanna Redevelopment Plan and taking our time to allow the process to unfold, which has included hearing back from the various land use bodies, many other stakeholders, including our most important ones — all of you. My sense is that consensus is developing on the Council around reducing the height and the density across the plan in a thoughtful way. I wanted to share just this one image with you that I think demonstrates how we’re thinking about it. This is the view from Cloverhill Place and Glenridge Ave., looking west, with Lackawanna on the left. The dotted red lines show the outline of the first draft of the plan that we introduced late last year. As you can see, effort has been made to pull back and pull down the bulk; represented by the new imagery (please note that white is just a placeholder color).
For me, I’ve been pouring over the traffic and circulation study data, the above mentioned feedback, and sunlight studies in effort to do the best I can to influence responsible changes so that my neighborhood isn’t overwhelmed, so that we’re respecting neighboring properties and so the development ends up being far better than what would get built there “as of right” if we weren’t going through this process — my primary concern. As I’ve always anticipated — reducing height and number of units may result in losing some of the initial amenities we negotiated. This is all a very delicate balance. As my colleagues continue to weigh in and offer their perspectives, I anticipate that we’ll soon release the full details of an updated redevelopment plan.
Phasing in a Gas Leaf Blower Ban
I support a full ban on the use of gas-powered leaf blowers in the Township of Montclair. Maplewood has done it, Washington DC has done it, and the entire State of California is phasing in the same. I care deeply about all of the environmental reasons for doing it (and there are many) and particularly about the health of the workers breathing in aerosolized gasoline. But for me, one of the biggest reasons is simply the noise. What they do, especially given the electric technology that now exists, is just simply not worth the nuisance of the noise.
But it has to be done responsibly. Many people are in contracts for service year 2023. It would be reckless to abruptly enact a ban and send companies and residents scrambling to figure out how to honor those contracts for the already negotiated work for the year. My colleagues and I are discussing this and I believe that in the coming weeks we will have 4 or perhaps 5 votes to enact a ban that would take effect before the Spring 2024 season. Of course this isn’t a done deal yet — the legislative and public comment period will just now begin. But I do believe this is the direction that we’re headed and that everyone should be conscious of that.
HRC in the MTC Tomorrow
Allow me a humblebrag moment. 19 years ago I was in then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s small New York Senate Office working as an intern. I became fascinated then with how serious Hillary took doing the work. She was always the most prepared person in any room and I was and still remain completely captivated by her. In 2016, I remember her telling all of us in “Hillaryland” that the things that were worth fighting for didn’t reside in her but rather in all of us and that we needed to pick up the baton now. I listened to her and I went for it and here I am. Tomorrow I get the privilege of greeting Secretary Clinton when she comes to Montclair State University for a Women’s History Month celebration that Senator Menendez is putting on. More importantly, after 10 years together — I think Ben will finally get to meet her. #points
If you know someone in Montclair who would be interested in receiving these updates, please forward this email to them. They can click his button to subscribe. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram below.