Brick Candidate Profile: Andrea Zapcic

Profiles of the candidates for the Brick Township Council are being presented for informational purposes.

Responses are unedited.

Candidate’s Name: Andrea Zapcic

Employer/Job: I am currently employed as the Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Rahway. I have been there six and a half years

Have you ever held elected office or served as an appointee to any government board (where and when)?

Councilwoman, Brick Township, January 2014 to present. Appointee to BMAC 2012.

1. Property taxes continue to be one of the biggest issues facing residents in Brick and statewide. How do you propose to manage the issue? Be specific.

Whether on the revenue side or the expense side of the budget, the key is sustainability. Across the board, all policies and practices need to contribute to fiscal sustainability in measurable and meaningful ways. It is simply not
sustainable to borrow without any regard for the payback. Neither is draining our surplus to avoid a tax increase in an election year, outsourcing essential services, failing to maintain equipment or installing red light cameras to generate revenue under the guise of public safety.

So what are we doing to stabilize taxes? On the expense side, we have eliminated sixteen positions, saving $1.8 million in salary and benefits. This is a permanent and sustainable change - many of these were patronage jobs and were unnecessary. We have reduced overtime costs by $370,000 dollars, and changed the management culture so department heads understand that overtime must be tightly controlled. We have bid and will continue to bid electrical services, saving $100,000 a year. And we have implemented a debt reduction plan that places a hard cap on new borrowing. As a result, we have reduced to Township debt by $8 million in two years.

On the revenue side, we are maximizing our Medicare reimbursements, have put a program to collect delinquent court fees and are aggressively seeking grants, bringing in over $5 million in Sandy Essential Services grants.

The result - we have stabilized municipal taxes for the first time in many years. While from 2007 to 2011, the tax levy increased from $42 million to $68 million (a whopping 61%), since the Democrats were elected, the levy has increased less than 1% per year.

2. Heroin has become a nightmare problem throughout Ocean County. What more do you feel Brick should do to address the problem?

The approach to this problem must be three-fold to be effective and must include enforcement, education and environmental strategies. We have already re-established the Anti-Gang Task Force (SET), increased our police force to 132 officers and dedicated staff to work directly with the Ocean County Prosecutor’s office.

However, Chief Bergquist himself has said “The police department is really good at arresting these people, whether they are using or selling. What we are not so good at is turning off the flow of new users coming in. I think that should be our focus.” This is why education is critical. Programs are being rolled out over the course of the next 9 months through our newly restored grant-funded BMAC program and in partnership with the Police Department, Ocean County’s Regional Coalition (DART) and our schools.

Finally, we are employing environmental strategies which cover policy changes, increased consequences and creating barriers to use. We have enacted a Landlord Responsibility ordinance to hold landlords accountable for the actions of their tenants, have added a dedicated Code Enforcement officer for rental properties, are establishing Neighborhood Watch programs in “hotspots” throughout the town and have a 24/7 prescription drop box in the Town Hall for residents to dispose of unused medications.

3. There are many who feel Brick Township has become very divided in recent years. How do you propose to promote unity within the community?

How to create a sense of community in a town as large as Brick (both in geographical size and population) and without a central “downtown” has been a topic of discussion for many years. Ideas have been floated, different things have been tried, and yet this year it happened somewhat spontaneously and quite unintentionally with the opening of the new Brick Farmer’s Market.

Each week for a few hours on Saturday morning, Brick residents would converge at Windward Beach to browse the vendors and select fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, meat, cheese and desserts for their dinner tables. Standing in line they would chat with neighbors unknown and friends not-yet-met. The questions asked were not “Are you a Mustang or a Dragon?” but instead “What kind of vegetable is that and how do you cook it?” Food always brings people together. But in Brick this summer, the combination of food, friends and fresh air was the magic recipe for
community.

4. We all see what the intense partisanship has done to our country as a whole. How do you propose to work together with the other party for the good of the township regardless of what happens in the election?

I am frequently asked my opinion on having a governing body made up of all one political party and my response is always the same. Having all one party on the Council is not necessarily a bad thing any more than having two parties on the Council is necessarily a good thing.

Being an elected official requires a heaping dose of humility and the ability to put service above self. If those serving on the governing body are doing a good job, share a passion and enthusiasm for our community and a commitment to sustaining and improving our quality of life, are motivated by the desire to do the right things for the residents and to make Brick Township better, then that should be all that matters.

It’s about the people, not the party.

5. If there was one program you could institute or beef up in the township, what would it be?

My heart is and always will be in BMAC.

From 1990 to 2012, Brick Township had one of the top performing, community- based substance abuse programs in the state, BMAC (Brick Municipal Alliance Committee). With grant-funding from the state along with a Township subsidy, BMAC delivered high-quality, evidence based programs that included an early childhood intervention program (ages 4-6), a peer-to-peer tobacco prevention program (grades 4 - 7), a peer-to- peer alcohol and drug prevention program (grades 6 - 8), a peer mentoring program (grades 9 - 12) along with the well-known Basketball and Softball leagues, the Brick Youth Club (grades 6 - 8) and BYC Teen Advisors (grades 9 - 12). Simply put, we had the opportunity to deliver a prevention message to a child and his or her family from as early as 4 or 5 years old right up through high school. The total annual impact on the property tax rate was two-tenths of a cent.

The defunding of this program in 2009 and its eventual dissolution in 2012 was a huge loss for Brick Township. While we reinstated BMAC last year, getting the momentum back requires far more effort than if it had never
been stopped to begin with.

Thanks to Mayor Ducey, we now have serving on BMAC a substantial number of working professionals in the fields of social services, mental health and substance abuse prevention. We can and will make a difference. Prevention is critical. For every dollar spent on prevention, it is estimated that $10 is saved on treatment and nearly $20 on societal costs.

6. If there was one thing you would want the residents of Brick to know about you, what is it?

I have worked in local government over 17 years - almost 11 of them right here in Brick Township. This experience has afforded me knowledge and insight into the day to day operations of local government. Additionally, I have another 18 years of working in the private sector as well as extensive non-profit experience.

Being a member of the Township Council allows me to put that knowledge and experience to work for the taxpayers of Brick and to repay the debt I owe to our residents for what I will always and forever see as the best eleven years of my career.