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Council takes organized approach to goal setting
(by Karen F. Mrnarevic - February 06, 2008)
The Woodcliff Lake Council, in cooperation with Mayor Joe LaPaglia and Administrator Ed. Sandve, has put together a list of goals and priorities for the upcoming year. The council members were asked to prioritize each item on the list, an approach endorsed and put into action by LaPaglia, the self-proclaimed “Businessman Mayor.”
The result was a list of 17 issues, separated into high, medium and low priority groups, ranging from the borough’s plans for land acquisition to the regional school funding formula. At the Jan. 21 meeting of council, the mayor initiated a discussion of the goals for 2008, and the council began the process of identifying the individuals and committees who will tackle, and in some cases have already begun to address, each issue. Below are issues which were designated High Priority.
Regional
School Funding Formula
According to LaPaglia, a committee, headed by councilmen John Glaser and Jeffrey Bader, has been assembled to address the regional school funding formula. The committee, which is composed of representatives from Montvale and
Woodcliff
Lake , meets for the first time this year on Feb. 6 to “talk about how we might proceed in moving forward,” said LaPaglia. He called it the “biggest single issue” facing the taxpayers of
Woodcliff
Lake .
The Regional School Funding formula, explained LaPaglia, “is a very complicated issue that involves state legislation and state Department of Education.” But the position of some members of the
Woodcliff
Lake governing body, and many members of the community is pretty cut and dry. According to LaPaglia, “We just do not believe that it is fair for us to pay significantly more per student than the other sending towns to
Pascack
Valley
Regional
High School ,” specifically Hillsdale and River Vale. He said the difference amounts to close to $9,000 per student, and “I don’t think that the socioeconomic disparity between the towns is such that it warrants that big a difference.”
According to Bader, “This is such an important priority, but the problem is it’s an uphill fight. We want to bring to the forefront the issue of unfair funding in our district.” Bader said that the boroughs of Montvale and
Woodcliff
Lake have already retained counsel in charge of investigating the towns’ legal recourse. As this is an ongoing issue, Bader said the borough has already reserved $30,000 in the budget to fund legal counsel. “We have to get the attorneys involved to set the tone.”
Among the solutions the committee will discuss is the possibility of dividing the regional schools,
Pascack
Valley and
Pascack
Hills
High Schools , in order to establish a K-12 school system for Montvale and
Woodcliff
Lake . In Bader’s opinion, “it’s an important fight that has to be brought up, analyzed and fixed,” with the end result being a better school district.
Field evaluations and renovations / Hatheway property
Field reconditioning is the priority of a committee formed within the Parks and Recreation commission, and the acquisition of the Hatheway property, located adjacent to
Old
Mill
Park , is a central element to the project. According to Councilwoman Joanne Howley, liaison to the Parks and Recreation Commission, the nearly four acre property, which abuts the current recreation land, is a high priority for the borough to obtain.
Howley believes that if the borough were able to acquire the property, now owned by the heirs of Jane Hatheway, “it would allow us to put in a multipurpose field with artificial turf.” The borough has already had the property appraised and had a landscape architect assess it for prospective uses. According to Howley, the property is large enough for a full sized soccer field and a basketball court. “We have been acquiring open-space grants from county and state over course of last few years for that purpose,” said Howley. “We are going to apply for more grants. Hopefully we’ll get them.”
Currently, the project to acquire the land is being handled by a bi-partisan group of council members, Bader, Paul Camella, and Bob Rosenblatt. According to Bader, “the project is a dream that I think is so necessary to our town,” and if everything goes to plan, the execution of the field renovations “will not have an impact on the current tax base.” He said that the borough has secured $1 million in grant money from Green Acres for this purpose. “We can make it a state of the art facility… I think that it’s a home run.”
Borough Hall expansion
According to Bader, who has been a proponent of expanding the Borough Hall for a number of years, the committee in charge of the project is very close to making a decision on a proposal to put before the council. The committee is choosing among three possible courses of action.
Plan A is the most minimalist approach, calling for an expansion of only the building department, with a projected cost of $600,000. Plan B, which Howley calls “way too extravagant,” involves a massive enlargement of the borough hall and the addition of a second story. The cost of this option would be about $1.8 million. Plan C calls for a modest addition of 500 square feet for the building department, improvements and renovations of borough offices, and a 30 percent enlargement of the council chambers. The projected cost of this plan is just under $1 million.
Bader said that the committee met two weeks ago, and came to a preliminary conclusion that it would like to see Plan C discussed on the council level. “We will make a decision within the next 30 days,” he said. At that time, the committee will make a recommendation to council, and the project will be subject to council approval. “Thank goodness we have such a healthy budget,” said Bader, who mentioned that funding has been reserved for the project in previous budgets.
LaPaglia is in support of the expansion, whatever the scale of the project, and does not believe the cost should prevent the council from voting to proceed. “The council voted without exception for new fire truck and chief’s car,” he said of a recent capital expenditure approved by the council. Given the council’s unanimous support of that expenditure, LaPaglia cannot understand why some members of the council may be “unwilling to invest a similar sum in the expansion of borough hall, which will outlast the car or truck.” In his opinion, the Borough Hall expansion is “long overdue and needed.”
Westervelt-Lydecker
For many years the issue of how to best make use of the Westervelt-Lydecker house and property has been a thorn in the side of the Woodcliff Lake Council. “That is such a difficult property. It was purchased with an idea of it being a museum, but the borough can’t afford to have a museum,” said Bader. Ideas for using the property include an arts and crafts center for local children, a Parks and Recreation office and a toddler park.
One aspect of the exterior modifications the borough had hopes to implement at the site was to put a parking lot behind the house, where there is now a garden. Extra parking would be essential if the property were to be used as a toddler park. Unfortunately, said LaPaglia, “that got held up by the Historic Preservation Society.” The borough received a grant from the NJ Historic Trust, but now faces constraints on what they can do with the property.
According to Bader, the borough may have to give back some of the grant money in order to get the ball rolling on turning the property into a usable community resource. “We are negotiating that now,” he said, and should reach a conclusion within 30 days.
LaPaglia said, “If we can’t convince [the NJ Historic Trust] that a toddler park would be better than the garden, we might have to pay them back the money they advanced.” He maintains that a toddler park would be a great addition to the town. “It could really be done very nicely, but you would have to provide some parking, and the parking can only go behind the house.”
For the time being, the house itself will remain unused even if a conclusion is reached regarding the fate of surrounding grounds. LaPaglia would like to see the house put to practical use. “We could maybe marry it with a toddler park… people can take their young kids through the house and show how people used to live.”
Bader suggests that members of the community come forward with their ideas for how the historic house can be used. “We are open to advice.”
Karen F. Mrnarevic's e-mail address is Mrnarevic@northjersey.com.
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