As Mayor Dennis Elwell starts his third year as mayor, he looks back at his administration’s accomplishments during 2002, calling it a significant year.
In a follow up interview to his state of the town report given at the Jan. 6 meeting of the Town Council, Elwell highlighted some of the accomplishments of the previous year and made plans for the upcoming year.
When Elwell took over as mayor in January 2000, he identified a group of critical issues that needed to be addressed during his administration such as building a library, fixing roads and establishing a trust with town’s business base, something he said has been lacking in Town Hall for quite some time.
Among many ideas he had for the future, Elwell said he would like to set up a cultural affairs committee to look into a variety of items, like a possible auditorium for the local theater group or establishing concerts in the parks.
Remarkably, 2002 saw the completion of many items he had identified as necessary to the well being or quality of life for Secaucus residents.
The list of accomplishments included stable taxes, the construction of the new library, local hirings of police, the cleanup of the old Keystone Factory contamination site, bus services for school kids, the acquisition of grants, a low crime rate, the expansion of health services, new programs for planting and preservation of shade trees, the construction of a river walkway, the construction of a new animal shelters, and numerous recreation improvements.
“Some of the things, we started earlier and completed in 2002, [and] some of the positive trends, we continued,” Elwell said.
In looking back, Elwell said 2002 turned out somewhat different from what he expected when it started.
“Last year this time, we expected to be in a war before February,” Elwell said. “We had an anthrax scare in New Jersey and other places and a sniper shooting people in the south. We saw the economy drop. And considering the difficult times we have faced, this community has done pretty well.”
Elwell said community has maintained its commitment to education and literacy, to controlled development and to providing for its elderly as well as to its commitment to provide quality affordable housing.
Since many residents are senior citizens with fixed incomes, the fact that 2002 showed no increase in municipal taxes is significant.
“This was the fourth year in a row we kept taxes stable,” Elwell said. “While I can’t promise we will do the same for the upcoming year, things look promising. But we won’t keep taxes the same just to keep them the same. It has to make sense and be fiscally responsible.”
Part of the success in holding town taxes, Elwell said, came as a result of agreements forged with various town employees to hold down salary increases to 3.4 percent a year.
While the new library won’t officially open until just after the first of the year, it has been one of the larger accomplishments of 2002, especially considering that this time last year the library was a year behind schedule and hadn’t yet put up a wall. In completing the library, the town also was instrumental in getting grants from numerous corporations and individuals.
Elwell said he and the council also supported a school bond that would result in the expansion of the middle and high schools, repairs to elementary schools and the construction of a new auditorium. The town also took steps in 2002 to secure funding for a possible new recreation center. This funding will come from a variety of sources including agreements with billboard companies to provide space on town owned property, cellular telephone companies to set up relays on town owned buildings and the sale of land to NJ Transit.
Local residents hired as cops
In 2002 the town was able for the first time in more than a decade to hire three local residents to the police force, with the new year promising to see the hiring of two more.
Since the late 1980s, Secaucus had been under scrutiny of the U.S. Justice Department for policies on hiring minorities. In the early 1990s, the town signed agreements to advertise more widely, often making it nearly impossible to give local candidates a job. Agreements forged in 2002 allowed the town to develop a local list as long as it also hired people from elsewhere.
“For the first time, we received praise from the NAACP rather than lawsuits,” Elwell said.
The Secaucus Fire Department, Elwell said, also continued to have one of the best response percentages for a volunteer department in the state.
Along with Assemblyman Anthony Impreveduto, the town continued to pursue its goal of establishing a hotel tax that would help pay for police, fire and ambulance services, and Elwell predicted the state would pass some from of tax by the end of 2003.
A report of the Keystone Cleanup Committee in December showed that the site of the former metal finishing plant and the nearby properties it contaminated were 99 percent cleaned up.
Secaucus saw the opening of a new nature trail near the Mall at Mill Creek, part of future plans to provide more open space throughout the town. Indeed, the town will shortly announce agreements with three property owners that will fill in the missing segments for the river walk – a path that will extend from the high school in the north end of town and follow the shore of the Hackensack River all the way to the southernmost tip of Secaucus at Laurel Hill Park. The 2002 River Festival was held at Laurel Hill Park in June with more than 3,000 people attending it.
To provide security in the variety of parks and walkways, the town hired park attendants, who will patrol and maintain parks – their salary paid by grant money from the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.
In 2002, Secaucus saw the approval of a development study for the southern section near the Secaucus Rail Transfer Station, and a verbal agreement with rail companies and the state of New Jersey for roadway improvements – including the constructive of a bridge over a busy rail line – that would open that portion of Secaucus to continued redevelopment.
“We have an agreement with the state and Norfolk Southern for $30 million in improvements to that section,” Elwell said.
Some long-standing problems resolved
The year also saw the resolution of a major roadway problem along Castle Road. For years, Castle Road had been a moonscape of potholes and sewer problems. Because the road was considered private property, the town could not repair it. But in an agreement forged early in 2002, the town will repair the problems and assess the costs to the property owners along it.
This year also saw the construction of a memorial to the Secaucus victims of the Sept. 11 attacks – a memorial recently visited by Gen. Alexander Haig and recognized as one of the nicest in the state by the League of Municipalities.
After a significant period of non-public involvement, the Secaucus Municipal Alliance took a more active role in providing anti-drug abuse programs in 2002, something Elwell predicted would continue in the new year. One of the most significant accomplishments was the passing of a smoking ban at recreation sporting events on or off the playing field.
Secaucus also continued its street repaving and curb installing program in 2002, redoing needy streets in all three wards. The town also increased its day care program in 2002 to Huber Street School, and plans to expand its programs to Clarendon School in 2003.
The year 2002, Elwell said, saw the town’s first Police Academy Program for kids – a summer program that will be expanded in 2003. The town also provided lighting to the high school football field in 2002, and the town’s recreation fields hosted the national Sandy Koufax baseball world series in 2002, and will host the series again in 2003. Secaucus’ traveling recreation soccer team when undefeated in 2002, and the Pee Wee football made the area superbowl.
The ice rink also served to host the town’s innovative mischief night celebrations, where kids got to play pranks in a controlled environment rather than vandalizing public and private property elsewhere.
Secaucus also hosted a professional boxing match at the Buchmuller Park ice rink in 2002. Buchmuller Park, which is currently undergoing an upgrade, also successfully hosted the Concert in the Park Series – an event co-sponsored by the Secaucus Reporter newspaper. The upgrades to the park will not only provide new lockers and other improvements to the ice rink by early 2003, but also provide an amphitheater in which to hold future concerts. The town also made improvements to its Ninth Street Playground.