Paying For Westvale Park

Westwood council members agreed to borrow against an existing ordinance to pay for overages on the project at Tuesday's meeting. They said they will also look to reduce capital expenses in the borough so they can retire their debt as quickly as possible.

According to Borough Auditor Gary Vinci, the project, which is revitalizing Westvale Park with athletic fields, a playground, a dog run and a concession building, is about $442,000 over budget. Vinci said appropriations for the money need to be in place by the end of the calendar year and gave council members three options to choose from.

The first option, which council members quickly rejected, was to pass an ordinance to acquire additional debt to pay off the bills. The second option was to review the capital projects on the books and redirect money to Westvale. Vinci said the capital surplus is $205,000 with about $150,000 available to pay for the additional expenses the borough is encountering.

The third option, which Vinci recommended, was using leftover money from a past ordinance originally approved for the bank stabilization of Pascack Brook. Last year the governing body approved that ordinance accruing $1.825 million in debt. Vinci said it looks like the Pascack Brook project is coming in under budget at $1.1 million so the council can borrow against that money. The council only needed to add the Westvale Park project as a second purpose to the ordinance to make that possible.

Vinci said somewhere between $650,000 and $750,000 is available for the council's use through the existing ordinance.

Councilwoman Cynthia Waneck was wary of using the existing debt to pay for Westvale. She also said she didn't like the fact that they were going to have a higher amount of money available. "What I don't like is whenever we put in numbers in that are higher, that somehow or another that money gets spent," she said.

Others agreed and council members unanimously decided to use a combination of the second and third options to have funds available to pay for Westvale. They passed an amendment to last year's ordinance adding Westvale Park as an additional purpose and passed a resolution to examine the capital improvement project ordinances with unspent funds and use some of that for Westvale.

The public hearing for both measures will be held at the next council meeting, scheduled for Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. in the .

Also at Tuesday's meeting, council members approved the cost of sodding the athletic fields at Westvale Park. That price came to $47,000, much less than the original estimate of $94,000. The borough received a $22,000 credit for unused seed and fertilizer and contractor by $25,000.