No shortage of tasks
facing those elected

The voters have spoken. They have given the control of our state to the Democratic Party, and they have kept Middlesex County in the hands of the Democrats as well. Locally, most of our municipal governing bodies will undergo minor changes come January.

With the Nov. 4 celebrations in the past, it’s time for our newly elected and re-elected officials to get to work as a cooperative unit without concern for political parties and without a grudge against one’s election opponents who may now sit beside them on the dais.

In Trenton, it is abundantly clear that our new Legislature must work toward campaign financing reform and address the shortcomings in New Jersey’s ethics laws. We also hope our leaders will give greater consideration to property tax reform than they have in the past. Our representatives should be reminded at every turn that our system of funding education needs an overhaul and that a constitutional convention is absolutely necessary to address this problem.

In the meantime, our local governing bodies should do all they can to provide tax relief where possible — cutting unnecessary items, making programs self-sufficient and finding innovative ways to generate savings.

Our local governing bodies must also exhaust all means of controlling sprawl. Open space funding should be used where it is needed most — to preserve farms and buy land that is in clear danger of development — rather than spending millions on properties that are already publicly owned, as was seen recently in Middlesex County’s purchase of the Runyon Watershed land in Old Bridge.

There is no shortage of tasks in front of those elected to serve us. We stand behind our leaders in achieving these goals and in serving their communities.