Take Five With Chatham Borough Council Candidate Peter Hoffman

CHATHAM, NJ - Patch asked Chatham Borough Council Candidate Peter Hoffman to take five with us and share some thoughts on the city, the campaign and beyond. His answers are below, with minor courtesy edits for style.

1. Why are you running for office?

I ran three years ago to continue Chatham’s time-honored tradition of fiscal conservatism, prudent management of our infrastructure and public spaces, and maintain the culture of volunteerism that allows a small town with limited resources provide so many excellent services. During my first term, we made great progress in addressing our long term revenue challenge through boosting ratables on properties in our core downtown business district and in the River Road Gateway area, which will allow us to lessen the disparate burden that residential property owners have in paying for our municipal services. We’ve also began to address the expansion and modernization of our wastewater treatment plant to support Chatham’s growth for decades to come, which is now well underway. I would like to serve one more term to shepherd these important initiatives to their conclusion.

2. What is the biggest challenge you see facing your community and how will you address it?

I believe the biggest challenge is flat aid from Trenton to municipalities like Chatham. Our aid has basically remained flat for a decade now, and we’ve responded by continually seeking ways to share services with surrounding municipalities, and have managed our headcount at Borough Hall while still providing our outstanding employees with competitive salaries and benefits. We’ve also been able to save money by deploying our talented DPW employees to complete critical public works projects that would otherwise have to be put out to public bid at prevailing wage rates. Going forward, this will be an ongoing challenge, which I believe will be made worse by continuing unfunded mandates from the State and the dismantling of some of the “tools” that had been put in place in the last administration to help local municipalities, including the sunsetting of the 2 perecent arbitration cap for police union negotiations. These are headwinds that we will have to deal with by continuing to seek efficiencies in how we deliver the quality municipal services our residents have come to expect.

3. What makes you the right person to vote for as opposed to the other candidate(s)? What do you bring to the table that others don't?

I have had a long career in public and project finance, and understand not only municipal operating and capital budgeting, but have also structured complex public private partnership transactions similar to what we are seeking to achieve downtown at Post Office Plaza. I have the skills and know-how to protect the interests of the Borough as a major stakeholder in any potential redevelopment solution that takes shape at that site, to ensure that the risks and rewards for the redevelopment of Post Office Plaza are properly allocated to the party best able to manage those risks.

4. What will you do to facilitate communication with the community?

Chatham Borough has a long history of providing outstanding communication to our community, but there is always room for improvement. We were one of the first towns in our area to have an interactive website, to broadcast our Council meetings live and to rebroadcast those meetings in addition to Zoning and Planning Board meeting throughout each month. We have an outstanding Alert Chatham Borough system to reach our residents in times of emergency, but the challenge with this and most notification systems is that it requires proactive registration by our residents, which can be a challenge. Too many times we have attempted to notify the community of important public meetings where their input is desired, through print and electronic media, only to be told by some that they didn’t know about it. This is the key challenge we need to resolve so that we can make our transparent approach to government be even more inclusive and open to all. We need to strengthen our Communications and Technology Committee and task them with finding ways to reach our residents as effectively as possible, and to encourage them to avail themselves to new opportunities to report issues to the Borough through new platforms we’ve recently adopted such as See Click Fix, and to have their voices heard on issues about which the Council seeks guidance through Planet Civic.

5. What inspires you?

A small town like Chatham relies on people who care to step up and volunteer their time not for personal gain but for the betterment of their community. The selfless volunteers who have served Chatham in some cases for decades for no reward other than the intrinsic feeling of doing some for the greater good is truly inspiring. Chatham is a town filled with talented people from all walks of life who are willing to share their insights and experiences on Boards and Commissions for the sole purpose of making our town better. I hope that in the future we don’t abandon that culture of service in favor of a government-led solutions.

(Photo courtesy of Peter Hoffman)

Editor's Note: Patch has reached out to every candidate that has filed to run for office and is publishing all responses received. If a candidate does not have a story on the site it is because they did not respond. Those with questions are encouraged to contact russ.crespolini@patch.com