$1.43 Million “Wish List” Shot Down in Spring Lake Heights

Art Herner, the borough’s public works director, will not be seeing two new sanitation trucks, a backhoe or other snow removal equipment added to department’s fleet anytime soon.

Nor will Police Chief David Petriken be opening packages containing automated license plate readers or the stationary solar speed signs that his force wants to use in patrolling the streets.

Although the Spring Lake Heights Borough Council voted 3-2 in favor of purchasing those big-ticket items under a $1.43 million bond ordinance, that measure did not actually pass on Monday night and must now go back to the drawing board.

State laws require that bond ordinances such as the one voted upon in Spring Lake Heights to be approved by a super-majority, which is two-thirds of the governing body.

In the case of Spring Lake Heights, the bond ordinance needed to be green lighted by four of the six council members to become law.

Only five of the six council members attended the meeting. Republican Councilman Gavino Maccanico was absent as his GOP colleagues, Councilwomen Sara King and Patty Cindea and Councilman Richard Diver, voted in favor of the ordinance.

The clause in the ordinance that would authorize the council to borrow nearly $1,358,500 in bonds to finance the capital purchases hit a sore spot with Democratic Councilmen John P. Brennan, Jr. and Thomas
Vorbach, prompting their dissenting votes.

When the ordinance was first introduced on July 25, Brennan
and Vorbach had called upon the council to dip into the borough surplus to purchase the public works equipment. Vorbach also called Herner’s requests a “wish list.”

The council’s GOP members, however, maintained that
the surplus should be saved for an emergency. Instead, the council should borrow and purchase the equipment while they could do so at a lower interest rate according to Diver.

Borough resident John Lewis of Prospect Avenue warned the council that taking out a loan to purchase public works vehicles that could become obsolete within 15 years would further burden the town’s taxpayers and future generations.

“Our kids and grandkids will pay for this,” Lewis said during the public hearing on the measure.

Diver told Lewis that as long as the borough did not refinance the loan over its expected 13-year term, the monthly payments and interest rate would remain unchanged.

Nonetheless, Lewis took the council and the public works department to task for not foreseeing earlier that they needed two new sanitation trucks.

The borough has carried out snow removal for numerous years without a new backhoe or front end loader, he added. Instead, the governing body ought to wait until the troubled economy turns around before placing a new tax burden on residents, especially those that are unemployed.

 “If you haven’t needed it for the 40 years I’ve been here, you can
get along without it for another year or two,” Lewis said.

The total estimated cost for the all of the requested vehicles—the two replacement sanitation trucks and a mega hauler as well as a backhoe and front end loader for snow removal--is $620,790 according
to a copy of the bond ordinance.

The council would have borrowed $589,750 to finance the vehicles which have an average life expectancy of approximately 15 years, the bond ordinance states.

The automated license plate reader, stationary solar speed signs, and utility trucks requested by Petriken on behalf of the police
department sport an estimated cost of $202,010. Of that amount, the council would have to borrow about $191,910 in bank notes.

The remaining line items in the bond ordinance included an estimated $360,000 towards repairs to borough streets and drainage
improvements; $127,200 for technology upgrades, furniture, equipment, and reconstruction of offices inside borough hall; and improvements to Ocean Road Park, estimated at $120,000.