Dear Editor:
The Mayor and his council allies have made some bad decisions affecting the well being of our town. Those decisions have changed many things in Secaucus, but not for the better. Perhaps, his most ill-advised decision was to build a multi-million dollar recreation center not only with our taxpayer money, but also, without asking us if we wanted it.
This decision should have been made by the residents with full knowledge of the total building and operating costs, including the debt service, and not without our residents voting on it. The recreation center will prove to be a big tax liability. It will never pay for itself. In fact, this non-essential luxury expenditure could cost too much to operate at some future date.
If you do some simple math, you will see why this is so. The operation of the center will cost approximately $1 million a year (we have been advised by the Mayor at council meetings that it will cost the taxpayers $800,000 per year to operate the recreation center and there will be a debt service – the interest paid to borrow up to $12,000,000 dollars in bonds to build this center – which would be approximately $200,000 plus more per year). If each member paid the maximum fee of $299, the center would require 3,344 members for the center to break even. But if there were 3,344 members, the cost of operations would also increase. More water, more heat, more electricity, more chemicals, more insurance, more paid personnel. The center will require as many as 5,000 to 6,000 members because membership fees are much lower for seniors, couples, and families with children under 22 years of age, than the $299 per person fee for individuals 22 years of age and older. However, the Mayor is telling the residents of Secaucus that only 2,800 members will be needed to break even. This is not true!
Can you, as a resident of Secaucus, imagine what it will be like to have hundreds or thousands of people using the facility at the same time? It is not going to happen. I toured the facility during its grand opening. Even though the facility appears nice, I couldn’t help but question, the effect that the poorly planned and inadequate parking provisions will have on our residents when the pool opens. Many residents have contacted me to voice their concerns which include: Why should all homeowners be taxed to support a facility that very few will use? If non-resident members must be used to lower the operating costs at the recreation center, why should tax payers have to supplement the non-residents’ fees (this is the situation at the pool)? What effect will these increases have on fixed income residents (home owners and tenants)?
Remember, the recreation center was built, in part, with money that should have been put aside to offset future costs of Transit Village. The projected need for road improvements, new buses, basic services, or another school, should have been the major focus of concern. Unfortunately, we are left with another example of how the Mayor and his council allies neglected to prioritize our town’s needs.
Peter M. Weiner, Esq.