Adieu!

Dear residents of Holmdel,

I am saddened to announce that due to a change in my current work situation, I am restricted from continuing in my current committee role and from seeking reelection to the township committee this fall. Therefore, I will be resigning from the township committee effective end of business today.

I have had the honor and privilege of serving you for the last three years, first as your councilman and now as your Deputy Mayor. I thank you for all your support over the last three years. I would also like to thank our exceptional township employees who work tirelessly to make our town a great place to live. Specifically, I’d like to thank our CFO Bill Antonides, our police Chief Frank Allocco, our former police chief John Mioduszewski, our town clerk Wendy Patrovich, our DPW chief Victor Stevens and our Recreational director Bob Ward for all that they and their staff do to help our residents every day.

I would also like to thank our current slate of professionals – our legal counsel, town engineer, town planner, and other support professionals for their quality work and candid feedback that allowed us on the committee to make the right decisions.

I was lucky to be part of a great team – initially with Mayor Buontempo and former Deputy Mayor Weber, and then with Committeeman Luccarelli and Committeeman Impreveduto.

Thanks to our teamwork, I can confidently say that Holmdel is in a better place now than it was three years ago: we have achieved significant savings in our debt cost, built a state-of-the-art firehouse, and embarked on the town’s largest road repaving and infrastructure improvement programs, all while keeping taxes flat. We also created more transparency and provided more power to the people by instituting various resident committees.

This is truly an example of a well-meaning group of individuals with different political leanings working together for the benefit of the people of Holmdel. Despite our apparent differences we all truly care about Holmdel and our quality of life.

We also benefited from having a politically diverse committee with two independents. This helped us stave off outside influence, vested interests and political pressure. Many of our achievements may not have been possible without this political diversity.

Lastly, I would like to say that while we may have seen our fair share of tribal politics in our town, the power to change that rests with each and every one of us. We as residents must demand more truth, civility, compromise, and tolerance in our leaders. We must also stay involved, learn about the candidates for both the township and the BOE, and vote for those who will put the residents of our town and our children’s education first and not subscribe to extreme ideologies or false propaganda by outside forces.

So, I hope you’ll stay involved, and if my circumstances were to change in the future, I would look forward to an opportunity to serve you again.

Thank you.

Prakash Santhana

Deputy Mayor

Holmdel Township, NJ