Glen Rock October 26, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 7 Candidates differ on revenue, personnel issues by John Koster Glen Rock’s Republican and Democratic candidates agreed that property taxes are the borough’s leading problem, but differed on the best ways to address the fact that taxes are driving many empty-nesters out of town. The discussion was part of last week’s candidates’ forum sponsored by the Glen Rock League of Women Voters. On Nov. 8, the borough’s registered voters will select a mayor and two council members. Incumbent Republican Mayor John van Keuren and Democrat Mark McCullough are competing for the mayor’s seat, while incumbent GOP Council Members Pamela Biggs and Art Pazan vie with Democratic challenger Howard Fox for the two seats on the governing body. “Our taxes are higher than any of the surrounding towns and that is because we have smaller commercial areas,” said McCullough, a former Democratic council member and appointed member of the Glen Rock Planning Board for 10 years. “I think it is within our power to do something about the taxes because we don’t have a budget problem; we have a revenue problem.” McCullough advocated re-zoning the available commercial space in Glen Rock to allow for more lucrative ratables to take the burden off homeowners. He said the new demographic was that people moved out of town once their students graduated, making room for more parents with younger children and increasing pressure on the schools – and property taxes. He said ratables are part of the answer. “That’s the closest thing we have to a magic bullet,” said Fox, the lone Democratic candidate for one of the two council seats. Fox also advocated centralized bookkeeping – seen by some as a tacit metaphor for staff reduction. He also advocated better use of electronic communication, a field where he said Glen Rock lags behind many comparable communities. McCullough said new technology might make it possible to reduce some personnel – possibly on the police department – an aspect Fox briefly admitted that he didn’t want to touch upon. McCullough said some sort of reduction in the cost of waste haulage could also help save money for the citizens. “There’s a dangerous beast running around in Glen Rock – it’s called the Sacred Cow,” McCullough said. “We’re doing garbage pickup essentially as we did it in the 1940s. We’re so fixated on the way things are and always have been done before that we’ve entirely missed opportunities in waste management.” “These ideas may seem attractive when property taxes are the obsession, but when you see the impact, you have to answer to the people of Glen Rock,” said Mayor van Keuren. “Sometimes, what sounds good at a meeting like this is difficult to implement. Curtailing the police department or department of pubic works services might not work…it would take a lot of (ratable) increases to affect our property taxes.” He added that more ratables could mean more traffic and more police services. Mayor van Keuren said that the Monday pickup of cardboard that began in January has already added revenue to Glen Rock’s coffers. Pazan added that his own home composting and recycling initiative has cut his household waste flow by 66 percent, reducing haulage and tipping fees. Extending this program voluntarily, Pazan said, could lead to significant reductions in the entire borough. Fox later countered that Glen Rock’s electronic information program is so lacking that many residents – following advice on the Glen Rock website – put their cardboard out for recycling based on the wrong dates. He said this problem had remained uncorrected from January until October, when someone caught the mistake. Mayor van Keuren and Councilwoman Biggs said the police department is in no way over-staffed and that the ratio of officers to townspeople, and police pay scales are among the tightest in the area. “We have NOT drastically increased the size of the police force in the last eight years,” van Keuren said in response to an anonymous written question. “We did NOT increase the size of the force in the past five years…It’s not out of line with any other police force around here and, by some standards of measurement, it’s one of the most efficient police forces around here.” Biggs said the roster of police officers is “bare bones” so that weekend and vacation scheduling is often a problem. Pazan said that, when he was at a party and a guest began to choke, he dialed 911, and a Glen Rock police officer was the first responder and got the man breathing again. He said that such vital services should not be tampered with. (continued on page 14)