The very first West Milford Council meeting of 2014 began with the old partisan politics from a few years ago. With their ongoing 4-2 votes along party lines, the council majority has already shown their unwillingness to work together, which our interim Administrator Robert Casey said they must do, when he spoke at the December meeting. I am sure he now realizes they just want to keep fighting the mayor's and administration's every proposal for their own self-serving agendas.
The removal of Ada Erik from the Cablevision Committee, after all the time and work she has put into this, was absurd. Now this work will be redone by new people with some very bad ideas, one being to spend a very large amount of money for a TV studio in Hillcrest. This is totally unnecessary and mind-boggling. In the past, one man with a small camera was able to tape all meetings, without a dime of our tax dollars and got them on TV and the internet too. This can still be done in a similar way.
The council majority seems to forget they were elected to serve every resident, not their own political party. Their job is to work cooperatively with the mayor, administrator and the rest of the council to accomplish something positive, one being to bring needed and wanted businesses to our town. Do they have any idea how many of us travel to another town and spend money at their chain shoe, sandwich, frozen yogurt, dollar store, and more, all in a small outside mall, just 30 minutes away? Do they even care? Do they even support the local businesses we do have now?
Let us make our new library building a model for other towns and stop fighting the Library Board, every step of the way.
We need more well-paid DPW workers and a few more trucks. For anyone to compare our 200 miles of roads, needing constant care, with small towns around us makes no sense whatsoever. Clean up the recycling center and get that shed finished, so workers don't have to sit in trucks, wasting gas so they can keep warm on their watch.
There is much to be done and wasting four months on non-issues, such as chickens and religious icons, did nothing to resolve anything. Hopefully this year, that will not again happen.
Sadly, the majority seems to put politics ahead of the good of their own town.
Each on this council must leave their Republican, Democratic and Tea Party labels outside before they enter the town hall and work as a team, for the benefit of each and every one of us. This is what you all were elected to do!
Eleanor Monahan
West Milford