Meet the Township Council Candidates: Shilpn Patel

Eight candidates filed to run in the November general election for three, three-year terms on the South Brunswick Township Council. The terms of incumbent Democratic Councilmen Joseph Camarota, Charles Carley, and Republican John O'Sullivan have expired. Both Camarota, of Kendall Park, and Carley, of Kendall Park, filed to run for reelection, along with Josephine "Jo" Hochman, on the Middlesex County Democratic Organization ticket. Also filing to run, under the Township Democrats ticket, were former South Brunswick Mayor Debra Johnson, of Monmouth Junction, and Shilpn Patel, of Monmouth Junction.

Voters will cast their ballots on June 5 in the Democratic primary to decide which three candidates will move on to the November general election.

On the GOP side, three candidates filed to run under the Middlesex County Republican Organization. In addition to incumbent O'Sullivan, of Monmouth Junction, are Michael Kushwara, of Kendall Park, and Paul Saltin, of Monmouth Junction.

Meet the Candidates: Shilpn Patel

Patel is a 2004 graduate of South Brunswick High School who previously interned for running mate Johnson. He studied finance at Rutgers University and previously worked in corporate sales in both New York City and Piscataway, before becoming a victim of corporate layoffs. Patel said he suspended his job search to focus on his campaign for council.

"I want to see changes in this town, because it's a lot different than the town I grew up in," Patel said. "My cousins in the high school aren't getting the same experiences with community events and programs. A lot of people in this town can't even name who the mayor and council is. This is a larger town than it was in the early 2000's and I want to bring this community back to the way it was."

with no tax rate increase. Patel said he believes drastic fluctuations in the tax rate hurt the township in the long run.

"When (Johnson) was in office, the town had steady tax increases that didn't require the increases of the last several years," he said. "We need a proper spending rate. You can't drop from 8-cents to zero because it hurts you in the long run. Especially when issuing bonds for poor investments  With tax appeals and the ratable decrease, you can't just shoot down to a zero increase because it will hurt us with an increase in the long run. We want to have a steady increase."

Patel said he was at a loss for words that the township no longer uses a citizens budgetary advisory committee to bring in skilled volunteers who help formulate the municipal spending plan. He said the township should be gathering the advice of skilled professionals who may be willing to offer their time.

With the , Patel said he understands the pain residents are feeling as someone who recently lost his job. In 2012, 391 tax appeals were filed in the township, up from about 180 appeals in 2011. In 2011, approximately 100 companies successfully sued the township for a tax reduction, which resulted in the loss of over $100 million in ratables. Of that total, $98.5 million came from commercial and industrial tax appeals. 

"People don't want to leave South Brunswick and are ready to do anything they can to stay," Patel said. "Residents are using tax appeals to save money and I understand that. It's hurting the municipal government and tax base, but I understand where they're coming from. We need to find ways to work with residents and businesses to help in other aspects that are causing the appeals.

"We don't have to keep raising the water and sewer rates, because we had increases for quite awhile. I don't understand why we have such high rates."

Patel said the municipal government needs to be managed more efficiently to improve the quality of life in South Brunswick.

"The town is growing and as it grows taxes will go up," he said. "What's happening is that we're losing a lot of government employees because the budget hasn't been managed properly. Public Works is smaller and they're being spread thin. We need to manage it properly so our roads and parks can be taken care of."

With the township still Patel said he also supports establishing a grassroots campaign to prompt the state to move forward on the much-needed improvements. 

"The government needs to get the community involved because that helped with Route 92 and the M.O.M line," he said. "That's what I want to do with Route 1. It's an expensive thing, but South Brunswick has never been as large as it is now. If we can get the community involved, the current administration will have to work with us and the state will have to listen. When I grew up in town there was so much community involvement and I feel the current administration has fallen off on that."

The township ratable base dropped 4.3 percent to approximately $3.6 billion in 2010. South Brunswick experienced another decline in ratables of about $5.4 million (2.3 percent) last year. Patel said work must be done to make codes more business friendly so as not to impede business owners from moving into South Brunswick.

"Going door to door I met a neighbor with a warehouse who wanted to open a second warehouse in town, but had an issue with codes so he moved it to another town," Patel said. "That's a huge revenue loss. As a corporate salesperson I have talked to executives and I believe that will translate into speaking with business owners to meet their needs, and find out their pain points, to help bring them into town."

Were he to be elected, Patel said he would seek to bring fiscal responsibility to the township in order to keep the tax rate consistent.

"My top priority is to have a responsible budget that brings our surplus back up and doesn't fluctuate tax increases or decreases, but keeps it steady," he said. "We need to manage growth. Growth is positive because it shows how great our town is, but we can't put the burden on Route 1 traffic."

Patel said he supports bringing more volunteer opportunities into town, like the internship he participated in during Johnson's time on the council. He added that encouraging more community involvement will help to improve the quality of life for residents.

"I don't look at myself as a politician, I look at myself as a citizen of this town," he said. "I want to be available for everyone in this town and I want them to know who I am so they can speak to me openly. I want to do what's right for our town. As a municipal government, that's what we need to do. Meet with people to determine what they want and what they need."