SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — Mayor Charlie Carley, a Democrat seeking another four-year term, says "the work isn't finished" and the next four years will decide what kind of town South Brunswick is in 2040.
He will be facing Republican candidate John O'Sullivan in the election.
Carley, 59, of Kendall Park, answered Patch's candidate questionnaire ahead of the Tuesday, Nov. 3, election.
(If you are a candidate and haven't received a questionnaire from Patch, please contact sarah.salvadore@patch.com)
1. Why are you seeking the office of mayor?
Because the work isn't finished, and the next four years will decide what kind of town South Brunswick is in 2040. We settled nine years of affordable housing litigation on our terms, not the builders'. We're repaving the town neighborhood by neighborhood: Timber Ponds and New Road are done, Kendall Park and Fresh Impressions are under way, and Wetherill is under contract. We put a signal at Finnegans Lane and Kory Drive, rebuilt the Fresh Ponds Road intersection at Route 130 and are at work on Richard Road.
I've served this town since 1997, first on boards and commissions, then 14 years on the Township Council and eight as mayor. I'm a licensed professional engineer and professional planner. When a traffic study or a water main report lands on the table, I can read it. With a gas compressor station proposed at our border and 3,177 court-mandated housing units on the way, that skill matters more than it ever has. I'm asking for four more years to see the work through.
2. What sets you apart from your opponent?
A record you can check. I've served South Brunswick for the better part of three decades, as a volunteer, on boards and commissions, on the council, and as mayor. In that time the town grew, and municipal government got better at its job. That record took years to build. I'm running on it.
3. What is the biggest issue facing South Brunswick right now, and what do you intend to do about it?
Growth that Trenton and the courts set in motion and that our taxpayers must absorb: 3,177 approved housing units. Every one of them lands on the same roads, the same water system, and the same schools, while the state cuts the aid that's supposed to help. The school district now gets about $10 million a year less in state aid than it did seven years ago.
Municipal government can't undo a court order, but it can manage what follows. We hold developers to the road work in their approvals. We give the school district our build-out schedule so it can plan seats before the students arrive. We grow the commercial tax base so new homes don't carry the whole bill. And where we can help our partners, the schools and the volunteer squads, we do.
4. The Sentinel data center at 4405 Route 1 is under construction, and the DEP is taking public comment through Nov. 9 on an air permit for its diesel backup generators. Princeton officials have urged the DEP to deny the permit, and East Brunswick and North Brunswick have banned new data centers. Where do you stand on this project, and would you support an ordinance limiting future data centers in South Brunswick?
I'd rather see batteries than diesel engines backing up that building — the technology exists. I've worked on this problem in private practice. Batteries carry a facility through most outages and allow an orderly shutdown in the rest. Where generators remain, cleaner options exist: emissions controls, renewable diesel and hybrid systems that pair batteries with fewer engines.
On the permit itself, the facts matter. The state Department of Environmental Protection issues air permits, not the township; we neither review nor veto them. The draft permit covers 12 emergency generators and would bar running them during air quality alerts. It should also require fence-line monitoring and a public record of every hour the engines run, and the comment period that closes November 9 is the place to say so. I've filed such commentary on my own behalf.
On water, the projection for this facility equals the use of 10 to 15 single-family homes, and the reporting law Governor Mikie Sherrill signed at our library on August 27 will confirm or correct that figure twice a year.
This project didn't arrive out of nowhere. In 2005, the township, Princeton University, and the state entered into an agreement that preserved 214 acres as the Mapleton Preserve; in exchange, the remaining land along Route 1 was zoned for office and commercial use. The data center is 341,000 square feet on 143 acres of that land, approved as a permitted use. Litigation over the approvals remains, so I'll limit what I say about them.
Yes, I support an ordinance, and we're drafting one that uses the tools the state gave municipalities this summer. We're doing this carefully — across the state, local governments have rushed to impose hurried blanket bans, which, while maybe politically popular, are already being challenged in the courts. Our ordinance will be legally sound; it will make these conditional uses with standards: enhanced setbacks, stricter noise limits, batteries or hybrid systems first for backup power, limits on water consumption, and a community benefits agreement. We will also keep in mind that data centers have operated in South Brunswick for decades, and quietly.
5. A majority of the township revenue comes from property taxes, and state aid is shrinking for both the township and the school district. What is your plan to keep South Brunswick affordable for young families and seniors?
Three things: grow the commercial tax base, hold the municipal levy under the cap, and make sure every eligible resident collects the relief the state has already promised.
The school tax is the largest piece of the bill, and the township doesn't set it. What we control is the municipal share, and the way to hold it down is commercial ratables, which pay taxes and don't burden the schools.
We chase grants every year: $750,000 for Richard Road, $430,000 for Reichler Park, more than $300,000 for recycling and clean communities in 2025 alone. Every dollar of that is a dollar not raised from a local homeowner.
For seniors, the Senior Freeze, ANCHOR, and Stay NJ programs are worth thousands of dollars a year, and too many eligible residents never apply. The Office on Aging and the Senior Center will help any resident file.
6. The 2026 municipal budget relies on $4.5 million in surplus and other non-recurring revenue. How would you reduce that reliance without raising taxes or cutting services?
By spending less surplus each year than we regenerate, and by replacing state transitional aid with ratables.
Start with the math: Our surplus grew from $3.42 million at the end of 2024 to $7.27 million at the end of 2025. Some of that was one-time money; the rest came from a year in which we spent less than we budgeted and collected more than we projected. The 2026 budget uses $4.53 million of it. The rule for 2027 is simple: anticipate no more surplus than the prior year put back.
Transitional aid is a bridge, not a budget line. It fell from $6.5 million in 2025 to $5.525 million in 2026 by design, and our agreement with the state Division of Local Government Services requires us to replace it. The two biggest cost lines we control after police salaries are health insurance at $13.27 million and solid waste at $4.53 million; both come up for negotiation or rebid, and both have room.
Nobody can promise a frozen tax rate and untouched services at once. What I can promise is honest arithmetic and a budget the state's examiners sign off on every spring.
7. Several housing units have been approved in town, and the school district has redrawn attendance boundaries to absorb an expected 1,600-plus new students. How would you manage this growth and the strain it puts on roads, schools, and emergency services?
The numbers the redistricting discussion sometimes leaves out are that South Brunswick's K-12 enrollment fell from roughly 8,800 students in 2017-18 to about 7,600 in 2025-26, by the state's own count. The 1,663 students the district's demographer projects will arrive over a decade and would bring enrollment to roughly 9,250, just above the district's 2011-12 peak. The district has run at nearly that size before. What it lacked was seats in the right buildings, which is why it redrew the lines, and we gave the district our build-out schedule so it could plan. I have every confidence in our elected Board of Education to meet the challenges ahead. We will work with them to be of use in their task.
Roads don't always come with the approvals the courts hand down, and that frustrates all of us. Every one of these developments carries road obligations: turn lanes, signals, sidewalks, and other off-site work, and we hold the builders to them. The rest falls to us and our partners. We rebuilt the Fresh Ponds Road intersection at Route 130 and put in the Finnegans Lane signal with the county in 2025, and we'll keep pressing NJDOT on the Route 1 intersections.
Emergency services are the piece we watch most closely. We budgeted $14.6 million for police salaries in 2026. Our three fire companies and two rescue squads are volunteer, and the surest way to keep them staffed is to keep volunteers living in town, which is why we're asking the state for a property tax credit for active members. It is critically important for the town's culture that the volunteer companies and squads remain independent and active.
8. How should South Brunswick meet its state housing obligations, and would you change the current plan?
Meet them the way the courts ruled, and don't reopen the argument. In September 2024, South Brunswick became the first town in New Jersey to settle its fourth-round obligation. The settlement ended nine years of litigation, set the obligation at 1,070 affordable units through 2035, and identified the sites. The alternative pressed on us would have brought about 9,000 units. Towns that let their settlements lapse invite builder's remedy suits, and a builder's remedy site is one the town doesn't choose.
Within the plan there's room to be smart, and that's where We'll keep pushing. Municipally sponsored, 100 percent affordable projects produce affordable homes without four market-rate units attached to each one. Senior housing counts toward the obligation up to a cap of 321 units and sends no children to school. Extending expiring deed restrictions earns credit without a shovel.
9. South Brunswick residents remain concerned about truck traffic on local roads. What is your vision for the Route 1 and Route 130 corridors, and what role should warehouses play?
Route 1 is our commercial front door; Route 130 and Exit 8A are our industrial back lot. Keep each doing its job and keep the trucks on the roads built for them.
The warehouse district between Route 130 and the New Jersey Turnpike has been there since the interchange opened before I was born, and it pays a large share of the taxes that keep the municipal rate down. The problem isn't the warehouses. It's the trucks that leave them and cut through Dayton, Deans and Kingston. In September, the council adopted Ordinance 2026-9, which adds to the list of roads closed to vehicles over the posted weight, and last year we banned standing and stopping on Distribution Way, which drivers had turned into a truck stop. Posting a road is half the job; enforcement is the other half, and our police have the authority to weigh and ticket. They use it, and not only on trucks: in June, Operation Safe Summer put 43 officers on traffic enforcement for one day and produced 222 stops and 119 summonses. That level of effort has been extended, and we're seeing the results.
On Route 1, the plan is redevelopment of derelict sites, not a new highway strip. The conversion of the Days Inn Sonesta Suites properties is under way, and we've begun acquiring properties on the corridor for public use.
The Route 1 and Route 130 improvements we need, the jughandles and the signal timing at the cross-town intersections, belong to NJDOT, and we'll keep pressing the state the way we did on Fresh Ponds Road.
No new warehouse zoning. We'll hold the industrial line where the Master Plan draws it, and every application before the Planning Board gets judged against the code and the engineering standards.
10. A Route 1 water main break in April put the entire township under a boil-water advisory, and a township employee's lawsuit alleges past water-safety problems. What would you do to make sure South Brunswick's water system is safe and reliable?
Two mains broke on April 14, one that morning at 4300 Route 1 at Dow Jones Road and one later that day on New Road at the Freedom Trail. Pressure dropped across the system, and when pressure drops, the rule is to boil until the lab says otherwise. Crews fixed New Road the same day and the Route 1 main within two days, sent samples to an independent laboratory, and lifted the advisory when DEP approved the results. The advisory was a precaution. Nobody found contamination.
The lawsuit you mention is pending. The township answered it in court and denied the claims, and I can't argue a case in a questionnaire. What residents are entitled to know is this: licensed operators test the water daily, an independent lab confirms it, DEP reviews the results, and the township publishes them every year in the Consumer Confidence Report on its website.
Reliable is a different question from safe, and it's one an engineer can answer. A system fails at its oldest joints and its single points of supply. We replace the oldest trunk mains on a schedule, add interconnections so one break doesn't drop pressure across the system, and keep the controls current. We pay for it through the utility's own rates and bonds, which is what this year's utility bond ordinance does, not through the property tax. The utility has served our town since 1971 and sells water to five neighboring towns; it can carry its own capital program.
11. The township is helping fund the legal challenge to the Transco gas pipeline expansion and is part of a regional watershed and flooding plan. What environmental issue should South Brunswick prioritize over the next four years?
Water, in both directions: keep it clean coming out of the tap and keep it out of people's basements. The Millstone watershed plans and the pipeline fight are both part of that.
Compressor Station 206 is a 32,000-horsepower gas-fired plant proposed for the Trap Rock quarry off Route 27, across the town line from Kingston. The council opposed it when Transco first proposed it a decade ago, repeated that opposition in June 2025, and in September pledged up to $32,000 to the Eastern Environmental Law Center's challenge to the state approvals. We'll stay in that fight as long as it lasts.
The flooding work is less visible and will matter more. South Brunswick is one of eight towns writing a nine element watershed plan for the Lower Millstone with The Watershed Institute, funded by a DEP grant through Montgomery. The plan opens the door to federal and state money for the projects that stop flooding: reconnected floodplains, restored stream buffers and rebuilt stormwater basins. Our own basins come first. Every township basin gets inspected, and the ones that have failed get rebuilt to soak water into the ground instead of sending it down the Lawrence Brook and the Heathcote Brook.
Land that isn't development tends not to flood anyone, and this town has bought land with that in mind for decades. With the county and the state, we've preserved thousands of acres across town. In 2023 we bought 44 acres of farmland on Perrine Road, and we've preserved the 207-acre Lawrence and Heathcote Woods at the headwaters of both brooks. When a piece of land becomes available, we'll always pursue it for Open Space.
12. If elected, what would be your top priority in your first year as mayor?
The 2027 budget. Everything else on this list depends on it. The budget we introduce next spring has to do two things at once: use less surplus than 2026 did, and step down transitional aid on the schedule the state set. Get those two right and the municipal rate holds without a service cut. Get them wrong, and the state's budget examiners make the choices for us.
Two items ride along with it in the first quarter of 2027. The data center ordinance goes to the Planning Board and the council for review and adoption, and the utility and public works departments bring the council an infrastructure schedule that keeps our built systems sound.
A budget, an ordinance, and a pipe schedule aren't glamorous, but they're the job.
13. What is your favorite part about living in South Brunswick?
The people. I gave Patch that answer four years ago, and there it is. This is a town where the Diwali food drive brings in 5,000 pounds for the pantry, where National Night Out ranks first in the state, where our children grow and learn together, and where the same volunteers who run the fire companies show up to dedicate a street sign to a neighbor who served in Vietnam. People here are educated, prosperous and generous with both, and they expect their government to be competent. That's a good town to work for.
14. Favorite place to visit with family in South Brunswick?
The dinner table. For the more outgoing, try the canal towpath at Kingston. Walk from the lock to the Mapleton Preserve and see what the township, the state, and Princeton University saved in 2005 while the rest of the Route 1 corridor filled in. It connects with the Cook Preserve and other pieces of space we've acquired over the past thirty years that now comprise the Kingston Greenway. Davidson's Mill Pond Park on Riva Avenue is gorgeous, and its trails lend themselves to thoughtfulness, particularly in autumn. Beechwoods Park is a quiet sanctuary on Beekman Road.
15. Is there anything else you would like voters to know about yourself or your campaign?
I'm running with Ken Bierman, our deputy mayor, and we run as a team because the council works as one. We don't do drama at 540 Ridge Road. We adopt budgets on time, we pave roads on schedule, and we answer the mail. We like to think that we are of practical use to our neighbors.
Operating Engineers Local 825, whose training center is in Dayton, has endorsed my candidacy. Operating engineers know the difference between a candidate who talks about infrastructure and one who gets it built.
The election is Tuesday, November 3. Vote-by-mail ballots are out now, and early voting runs Saturday, Oct. 24, through Sunday, Nov. 1. You can read more at CarleyBierman2026.com. Thank you for the trust you've placed in us these past years. We'd like to earn it again.
Have a correction or news tip? Email sarah.salvadore@patch.com
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