Taxpayers deserve greater input on Crossroads plan
Edna Gordon
Guest Column

The meeting of the Old Bridge Township Council, at which the residents were to be convinced that the Crossroads plan proposed for development on Texas and Marlboro roads and routes 9 and 18 is the answer to the township’s financial problems, didn’t achieve its goal. Instead, it raised more questions than it answered.

The Crossroads proposal is a 38-page document that the public has been given no chance to examine and on which it has had no opportunity to offer input. Our elected officials must understand that as residents we want and are entitled to all the information available on what is being proposed and the impact it will have on our lives.

Instead of information, what we received were individual letters from Mayor James Phillips and Patrick Gillespie, Economic Development Corp. (EDC) president, telling us to trust them when they tell us Crossroads is the only answer to high taxes. In addition, both men took full-page advertisements in a local paper extolling this proposal. We can only wonder why Democratic political action committees’ (PAC) funds were used to pay for this literature. Given today’s political climate, this does not seem like the wisest way to promote development and reassure concerned residents.

If this proposal is really as great as the mayor and the EDC president would have us believe, they would be better advised to use these funds to have copies of the report printed and made available at the libraries, municipal building and other accessible locations.

In conjunction with that, town meetings should be held in all sections of Old Bridge. This would give the residents the opportunity to ask questions and might help lay to rest any concerns they have.

In addition to discussing Crossroads, it is important for the council to explain exactly how a redevelopment agency functions and the role it will play in the development of Crossroads. Few people realize this will be an autonomous agency that will make the decisions governing the development of Crossroads. This includes financial decisions. It is important to remember that unlike the elected council members, the members of the agency will be appointees who are not responsible to the public but to the party that appoints them.

Today, more than ever before, it is important for our elected officials to be responsive to the concerns of the people. If Crossroads is really the panacea the mayor wants us to believe it is, it will still be viable six months from now. If the mayor and Mr. Gillespie really believe in this proposal, they should welcome the opportunity to meet with the residents and respond to their concerns. Surely, they don’t have to be reminded that this is taxpayers’ property, paid for with taxpayer dollars.

As elected officials, the mayor and council members are caretakers, not developers, and they owe it to the residents to provide them with the opportunity to have a voice in any decisions that are made.

Edna Gordon is a resident of Old Bridge