The following is a contribution from Steve Bumgarner originally posted on Warren Confidential. Berkeley Heights residents should pay close attention to the concerns especially surrounding the issue of funding sources. To date, despite the many speeches and articles from the Recreation Chair and Township Government – requests for information are provided late and are reliant on whether the Town Council Member wants to provide responsive documents, the lease agreement is still not available to the public for review, questions on liability remain unanswered and a comprehensive line by line breakdown on where the money for the turf field exists is still not available.

Contribution from Steve:

For those who missed the Township Committee meeting this week (starting at the 1:00:20 mark), a resolution was put forth to add a non-binding referendum question to the November ballot asking the town if they would be in favor of building a 36,000 square foot recreation/community center next to the current municipal building, at a cost of $19,500,000 paid for with a 20-year bond. This translates to an average cost of $227/year to the taxpayer, based on the mean house valuation. Some points for discussion:

1. What happened to the private funding? During the primary season, Croson, Blick, Sordillo, Gallic, et al campaigned on a “privately-funded public recreation center”. Mayor Sordillo, at a Senior Citizens Advisory meeting, said he had a friend who was willing to donate $10 million dollars to make this happen. Fast forward a few weeks and Sordillo admits the cost of the center doubled from what he projected, and while private funding to offset some of the cost could still be on the table, his initial promise was not nearly enough to cover the cost. Did he really not know that the cost would double in just a few months, or was this just a cheap appeal to voters based on a falsehood? There were numerous letters to the editor praising the idea of a no-cost to the taxpayer rec center, it was clearly a pillar of their campaign. Oopsie daisy.
2. Why a referendum, and what exactly are we voting on? Sordillo also admitted that the resolution is non-binding – the TC can do whatever they want, regardless of the outcome of the vote. There are two problems I see with putting it up for a vote on the ballot. First of all, the TC has not yet decided what this thing is going to be. Apparently the full plan for the rec center is actually a 54,000 sq ft facility at a cost of about $27M, but Sordillo doesn’t want to put that on the ballot because he feels it won’t pass. Umm, what? This is not wrapping a dog’s pill in a piece of cheese so they’ll eat it, the public probably should know precisely what they’re voting on to make an informed decision (and more on the obstacles of that in the last discussion point). It also appears there are conflicting views on what the scope of the center should be, and if Hofheimer House can be used for some of this (a point Committeewoman Lontai brought up, which is not a bad idea), such as the proposed meeting rooms. If the TC can’t agree on scope, how should the public be able to make an informed decision? Second, why a ballot measure? Wouldn’t the temperature of the community be better found via Master Plan surveys, stakeholder sessions, etc where you can actually derive meaningful data that could guide the scope of the project? This referendum is presenting a binary choice in a vacuum when as we know there are a lot of planning-related items coming down the pipeline that have to be considered when making a decision like this. Which leads me to …
3. Why are we even talking about a recreation center right at this moment? Wouldn’t this be better to discuss within the context of the Master Plan coming next year, where we can provide a holistic view of how this center would fit amongst affordable housing requirements, EMS planning, etc? I appreciate Committeeman Fine bringing up solid points regarding the lack of scope definition presenting problems for the voters, but I wish someone on the dais would have taken an even bigger step backwards to say “why don’t we just wait until we see how this fits within the Master Plan?” I was disappointed that every TC member voted yes to this for this very reason. Sordillo claims time is precious and due to long construction times we need to get moving, but why? Isn’t another year without a rec center (we’ve survived this long without one) worth it to make sure we’re doing this the right way? If you’ll allow me to put on my tinfoil hat for a moment, I’m a bit concerned the biggest building project in town history is being fast-tracked for personal legacy reasons, i.e. getting a name on the plaque.

I will be voting no on this in November, which is a shame because I’m not necessarily opposed to the idea of a community/rec center. However, I’m very opposed to the haphazard approach of pushing forward without first getting real feedback from the community (not just a yes/no answer) and seeing how this center would fit within a broader vision for Warren. This year is a presidential election which sadly is the only time most people bother to vote, meaning a lot of uninformed voters may be giving the TC the green light based on absolutely nothing. Pushing forward without doing the planning legwork is insanely reckless, especially considering residents will be paying for construction, operation, and maintenance costs (we don’t even have a clue as to what operation and maintenance costs will be) for at least the next 20 years. The town owes it to the residents to at least try and get it right before asking us to pony up.

NJ21st Editor Notes:

Recently, emails from the Berkeley Heights Recreation Chair and an article from the township appears to demonstrate that funding can be secured without the District handing it’s property over to the Township for 25 years so why the non-binding resolution?

Why is the Berkeley Heights Township Government preventing the public from seeing the lease agreement? Why doesn’t the township have a line by line breakdown on how this will be funded?

Why are liability concerns not explicitly stated in the lease agreement (a conclusion drawn based on emails obtained through OPRA)? What is the revenue sharing breakdown for our Students?

Why does the Recreation Department continue to discuss what it has invested in the fields without discussing the revenue draw?

Of course none of us assume anything “nefarious” is happening however we are really puzzled as to why so much effort is being put into long-winded articles and speeches but the basic information actually needed for residents to make a decision continues to be wrapped up in secrecy.

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