Lower Milford Candidate Wants Referendum on Quarry Fight

Bruce Kaplan wants to make it clear that he is not in favor of the proposed Geryville Materials quarry that has been at the center of a long legal fight in Lower Milford Township. 

But the candidate for township supervisor said Lower Milford should hold a referendum asking residents if they are willing to continue to pay for the costs of battling the quarry. 

“People who are going to pay the freight should know the weight,” said Kaplan, 60, who is running as an independent against incumbent for a six-year term. “If we were to present it to the people…and the people approved it, I would be a thousand percent behind the people’s decision.”

Geryville Materials has a plan before the township to start a mining operation on 90 acres while it awaits legal rulings on a plan for a larger quarry on 628 acres on Kings Highway South and Mill Hill and Buchman roads. The township has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the more than six-year fight against the proposals. 

Residents who oppose the quarry say it will bring constant truck traffic, hurt their property values and cause a host of environmental problems, such as poor air quality. 

Kaplan said he’d also like to try to bring a more civil tone to public debates over such controversial issues. “We ought to be able to discuss issues in our community in a dignified manner, and I think we’ve strayed from that,” he said. 

He has shunned using campaign signs, saying they are distracting without informing anyone and are often left to litter the landscape for a long time after the election. If elected, he said he’d contribute his supervisor’s stipend to the Limeport Stadium and the township police and fire departments.

Kaplan said he would try to look at the issue of tax relief for longtime property owners who are often priced out of the township when they retire. 

Kaplan has lived in Lower Milford for 23 years. He worked for 10 years as a sales executive with Georgia Pacific and spent 16 years running a business called Photo Finish Inc. in New Jersey. He is currently lead administrator for a company that does health assessments for branches of the military. 

His business background would inform his work as a supervisor, he said. “You don’t have a lot of room for mistakes in running a small business,” Kaplan said. 

He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from New England College’s Arundel-Sussex campus in England.  Kaplan’s wife Alison is a Southern Lehigh school teacher and they have four grown children.