4 Takeaways From Bernards Township Candidate Forum: Video

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — The candidates for Bernards Township Committee faced off at a public debate last week, giving local voters another look at their choices for the 2022 municipal election.

Republican incumbent Janice Fields and Democratic challenger Jessica Simpson-Cook participated in the forum hosted by the League of Women Voters with members of the Ridge High School Empowerment for Political Participation (REPP) on Oct. 18.

Both Fields and Simpson-Cook are vying for the one open 3-year seat on the township committee.

Here are four main takeaways from the candidate forum:

Please describe how you will encourage the growth of new businesses in town, particularly businesses geared toward the 18 to 34 age group?

Simpson-Cook: "In talking to a lot of the residents and me being one of those people, it seems that a lot of us do our recreational events outside of town. I think a lot of great businesses in town and we just need to find a better way to promote that."

Simpson suggested hosting a Restaurant Week or farmers market.

"I think we just have to look at it a different way. There is a way to promote things in town to bring people back to our town and engage residents that are a little younger who are new to the town to help our commerce as well as our sense of community."

Fields: "The business alliance this year starated a young business professional group so they can outreach and get more involved with the young professionals in our community and how they can help the businesses. I feel that it is very important to have that alliance with the business alliance and our business community."

What will you do when are on the Township Committee to better manage future storms and flooding especially after swift water and rescue training was canceled?

Fields: "The swift rescue was not canceled. What happens was the township committee sat down with the Basking Ridge Fire Company and Liberty Corner Fire Company to discuss a program for swift water rescue. That entails training, equipment such as suits and also a watercraft unit. All of that would cost taxpayers money and that would be spent on two flood plain areas in the town. We decided we wanted to look into other ways of spending taxpayer money such as an all-purpose vehicle so if there is a flood we can get in there. But not only will the money be spent on flood issues it will also be spent on DPW issues, fire, storm issues. So the vehicle can be used for multi-purpose not just for flood. So that is an investment that we are making."

Fields also noted that the Liberty Corner Fire Company is doing swit water training and they are paying for that themselves.

Simpson-Cook: "I think the fact is the swift water was denied is quite a shame. I obviously agree we need to be fiscally responsible but I think there is a limit to becoming fiscally responsible and worrying about the lives of people in our town. Whether that people on one street or 15 streets. I think we all know with climate change these storms are only going to get worse. Every 3 or 4 years Sandy, Ida they get worse and worse. And I dont think that we have the liberty or take the liberty to say there is only 3 roads in town we'll figure it out. It's been a year since Ida and I don't think anything has changed. And I think we need to outweigh the risks of doing it to spend the extra $25,000 or do we need to worry about the lives of the residents who didn’t have anywhere to go and were told to get on their roofs who were really at risk of life."

What are the most important challenges facing Bernards Township and how do you intend to address these challenges?

Simpson-Cook: She pointed to two big challenges in the town including the Liberty Corner First Aid Squad and the town's response to storms and flooding.

"I think there is a huge challenge going on there that, unfortunately, has gone very legal. And being going on for 3 years that this has been an issue and we knew it has become a problem to lose that squad I would hope there is a better way to come to a resolution on that. Whether it sharing with Atlantic Health because I think it will be a real disservice for the members of the community who are served by that squad who are going to end up paying more, even though they are already paying tax dollars for a service they won't receive. And also not giving the respect to that squad who has been serving us for over 50 years."

Fields: Fields pointed to the budget as being the major issue in town. "Our healthcare costs have gone up 25 percent. If we don't get those costs down we are going to have to pay the extra 25 percent on the premium. The next is inflation, everything that we buy, purchase costs a lot more and we are having a hard time getting supplies and the supplies we do get are costing a lot more money than did before. So that's going to increase the budget."

"The next thing is we are having a shortage of employees we are having a hard time getting people to work. Right now we are down 2 engineers. As everyone complains about potholes and road issues… the reason hasn’t gotten paved we are down 2 engineers and that is a major problem. And finding employees to work for the town so that we can do that job that we plan on doing," said Fields.

How do you plan to keep the property taxes from rising while meeting the need of the citizens of Bernards Township?

Fields: "When COVID hit we knew we were going to have a revenue problem so the first thing we did was ask each department to cut 20 percent out of their budget. And that saved all of us. We were able to keep the tax rate down to 2 percent, actually a little lower, that year. We will continue to ask department heads to continue to cut 20 percent."

"The other thing, like I said, if we can’t do it because of financial issues and it's not an emergency such as capital improvements we will put that off to next year. But this year with inflation it's going to be a very difficult budget year," said Fields.

Simpson-Cook: She agrees with Fields that looking internally at the budget to see where you can cut costs is a good idea.

"I also think might, as it might be slightly unpopular, as this town grows another way to offset your taxes is to make this more attractive to businesses. We don't have to build. We have a lot of empty storefronts, a lot of empty places in town and we need to make this more attractive to businesses because that will offset some of the taxes."

You can also read full profiles for Fields and Simpson-Cook on Patch.

Watch the full debate below:

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