Meet the Candidates: Bruce F. Carstensen

Bruce F. Carstensen

Running For: Upper Saucon Board of Supervisors

Affiliation: Republican                 

Residence: Upper Saucon

Education: B.S. Mathematics, Gannon College, Erie PA

Profession/Work Experience: Profession: Project Manager, British Telecommunications. Political experience (Clinton Township, NJ): Zoning Board of adjustment (1yr), Budget Committee (3 yrs), Personnel Committee (2 years), Planning Board (1 yr), Open Space committee (2 years), Sewage Commission (3 years), Court Committee (1 yr)

Why are you running? Quality of life, open space, reasonable budget

If elected, what would you like to accomplish? The constantly changing needs of the community need to balance and be represented within government so as to keep UST a beautiful community and a wonderful place to live and raise children. The challenge for any supervisor is to do this effectively while reducing the tax burden but striving to maintain services.

FORUM QUESTIONS

Vision for the future of the Township:

I would like to maintain good quality of life. We all live here because we like to. We need to maintain a good quality of life for our children to enjoy and I would like to maintain that.

Collaborating with the school board

I would certainly rejoice at the opportunity to work with the school board and bring to bear any and all help that they need and provide just everything we can. Children are probably a top priority. Working to get that functioning in an effective manner is something that I think we all could get behind.

Township Employee Pay Raises

It is a recession, I haven’t had a pay raise in more years that I’d like to admit. So my feeling on that is that township employees are not exempt from recession or any other economic issue and that their raises, with the extent that they can be controlled, should reflect the nature of the economy.

How many township supervisors meetings have you attended in the past year?

Three.

What is the annual township budget?

I don’t know.

Have you ever filed any legal action against the township?

Never, none.

Do any of the candidates have land investments? Would this cause any issues, and if so would you recuse yourself?

The short answer - no conflicts, long answer - a supervisor is always required to be forthright in their ethics. So if a supervisor had any conflict or the perception of a conflict they would need to recuse themselves from a vote. So if anyone here had such a conflict it would be their duty to step back from that issue and recuse themselves and not vote.