Message from Councilman Matt Adams | March 10, 2022
As we enter March, Spring is finally on the horizon.
That means that the Township Council is busy planning to roll out it’s 2022 budget, with a zero percent increase in taxes, and working to identify the capital improvement projects that we will tackle together with our various community partners over the coming months to move our community forward.
In my opinion, the best way to view capital improvement projects is as short term, incremental steps toward long-term goals, usually involving infrastructure or other community resources.
While this Council’s goals for our community are numerous and ambitious, revitalizing our aging parks and youth sports facilities are among the Council’s most significant priorities and audacious objectives.
At the same time, this Council is committed to fiscal responsibility, and maintaining the outstanding financial standing that has been achieved in the last several years under the leadership of the Township Manager, Deputy Township Manager, and CFO without appreciable tax hikes.
I am excited to report that the proposed 2022 Scotch Plains capital budget prioritizes our parks, recreation, and youth sports facilities in a big way.
The proposed 2022 capital budget represents the most significant investment in our recreation and youth sports infrastructure in the recent history of our Township, including major proposed facility upgrades to Green Forest, Greenside, and Brookside parks.
Despite many demands on limited resources, a desire to keep taxes flat, and the need to add critical public safety resources to our police and fire departments, and new capacity to our public works department, among other equally pressing priorities, we appear to have found a strategy to fund the much needed upgrades to our community's parks that our residents deserve.
Of the proposed, aggressive nearly $2.1 million capital budget for 2022 that will be introduced later this month, more than $1.3 million of capital improvement funding has been proposed for long overdue parks, recreation, and youth sports facilities related projects.
We will not be able to fix everything that needs fixing overnight, but this Council is doubling down on its stated commitment to revitalizing this critical infrastructure that belongs to all Scotch Plains residents.
For too long, these necessary projects have been neglected in favor of other priorities. That era of neglect is over.
The Recreation Commission has done its job by formulating its master plan to guide recreation capital improvements in our Township for the next decade or even longer.
However, none of those projects identified in the master plan can become a reality without capital improvements funding from the Council in the municipal budget. My colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that we never return to an era where critical recreation infrastructure projects die on the cutting room floor of the budget process.
All the while, we continue to engage with the allied associations and our partners at the Board of Education, county, and state to facilitate collaborative approaches to decades old shortages of state of the art parks and recreation spaces in our township.
It will take us some time to reimagine some of our park spaces to the caliber of facilities that the residents deserve and rightfully demand. We urge your patience. But, 2022 is shaping up to be the year we take a massive leap in the direction of long needed progress for recreation facilities in Scotch Plains.
