Village President Alex Torpey's Rough Notes for the South Orange 2015 State Of The Village Address

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Thank you everyone for being here, and thank you Mr.
Lewis.
Before I dive in, I want to do something.
Will all the Trustees please rise for a moment.
Let’s please give a round of applause to Walter Clarke,
Sheena Collum, Deborah Davis Ford, Howard Levison,
Mark Rosner and Steve Schnall. Thank you. Not just for
being here, for all of you being here, but for your hard
work and your real genuine commitment to this
community. And for putting the people in this town first,
before politics, which has not always been the case even
in the time I’ve been here, and isn’t the case in many
towns. We’ll come back to that. But please stay standing
for a moment.
You met Mr. Lewis, our Village Administrator, and along
with Deputy Administrator Adam Loehner, and Cathy
Cameron in administration who helped coordinate this,
and to all of our department heads, will you all please rise

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as well, and let’s give them a round of applause for all of
their extremely hard work….
- Administration
- Village Administrator, Barry Lewis
- Deputy VA Adam Loehner
- Building Department
- Construction Official, Tony Grenci
- Clerk’s Office
- Village Clerk, Susan Caljean
- Deputy Clerk, Shinell Smith
- Engineering Department
- Village Engineer, Sal Renda
- Fire Department
- Acting Chief Dan Sullivan
- Health Department
- Health Officer, John Festa
- IT Department
- IT Manager, Stan Wilkinson
- Library
- Director, Melissa Kopecky
- Police Department
- Chief Jim Chelel
- Captain Kyle Kroll
- Captain Ed Heckel

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- Public Works
- Director, Tom Michetti
- Recreation
- Director Kate Schmidt
- Tax Assessor
- Assessor/Purchasing Agent, Ellen Malgieri
- Tax Collection
- Tax Collector, Ronke Zaccheus
- SOVCA
- Executive Director, Bob Zuckerman
- SOPA
- Executive Director, Mark Hartwyk
- SOPAC
- Executive Director, Mark Packer
- Rescue Squad
- Captain Dan Cohen
- President Melanie Trancone
And a special thanks to our administrator who plays such
an important role in not only helping manage this
rambunctious group of elected officials, but for finding
ways to bring our budget and services in at the levels we
want, and for generally being someone committed to the
advancement of this organization as a whole. And if there

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are any other staff that are here please stand too. A round
of applause for all of them please. These are just some of
the people who carry out the policy we set, and do an
incredible job of doing so. Please all stay standing.
Now will anyone who volunteers with the village or any
committee please also rise.
Thank you to all of you for your incredible contributions,
and for getting involved and doing the hard thing - actually
trying to find solutions and putting in the time to work
together to get there.
Now take a look around for a second… this is why South
Orange is as successful as it is, because so many are
active - and this is just a small slice of them - who are
involved in what’s happening in town, everyone has a role
to play, and everyone who does, plays it very well. I’ll
come back to this a little later, and you all can take your
seats.

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I know we have some other elected and public officials
here today too…. and I’d like to thank them for both being
here and also being committed to serving the public as so
many of us here are.
---
At this point in history when it is becoming increasingly
easy to measure things - we have more data, and
computing power and algorithms than we have ever have
had, it’s so important to be able to take perspective, take
a step back and ask ourselves a simple, but important
question: What, exactly, are we measuring - What’s the

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quality of our measurement… how do we measure our
ability of measuring? Does any particular measurement
offer a complete view of what we are trying to understand,
or is it just the most convenient, most easily quantified way
to measure a part of what we want to know, while
mistakenly leaving something else out?
Often, our increased ability to measure certain things at a
micro level means we actually fail to measure the whole of
something - we often fail to see the larger picture -
including those things that are extremely hard, or
impossible to measure, and sometimes to even
understand.
Tonight, I’m going to offer you as complete of a picture as
possible of our performance and the quality of government
in South Orange. In addition, I will explain how we plan to
continue to improve that performance, and the role that all
of you so critically play in that process.
Before I dive in, I need to make an important distinction
that underpins our ability to get a complete picture of the

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quality of government in South Orange, and ultimately the
state of our village.
There are actually two different governments, and
subsequently, really two “Villages” that you will be given
the state of tonight - and spoiler alert - the state of both of
them is strong.
The first, is the government, with a lowercase g. This is
the government you can most easily recognize. This
government is the buildings, the staff, the payroll, the
interactions, the services. This is the police officer who
responds to a 911 call, this is your child participating in a
program at the Baird, this is your road getting paved, your
recycling getting picked up and so on. This government,
we’ll find, is much easier to measure, and is where we will
start, in a moment.
But we can’t make the mistake of thinking that
understanding this government will give a complete picture
of what we want to know tonight, which is the state of our
Village, not just the state of the operations of the institution
of the village government. This government, with a lower

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case g, you can think of actually as the output and is only
half of the puzzle.
The second half is Government with a big G. This
Government is the idea, the concept and the philosophy
and the culture of Government, and it is inclusive of every
single one of us, all of our ideas, our desires, our fears,
our interests and our frustrations. This is the entire
ecosystem where people, and thoughts come together, or
don’t, where ideas percolate, where rules get interpreted,
where minds get changed, where priorities get thought
about, set, modified and set again. This encompasses
every single person and entity in and around South
Orange, whether meaning to participate or not, or part of
the little g government or not. This is a dynamic, non-
physical Government. It has no institution - no buildings,
no payroll, no employees, no meetings, no contracts.
This is the theory of Government… The idea of using
collective and publicly accessible systems to codify
values, priorities and rules through democratic
means, in an attempt to provide equity, justice,
progress, innovation, safety and opportunity.

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This can be thought about as the input. It is much more
abstract, and it is much harder to measure, but it is no less
important.
But before we get to these big pie in the sky abstract
ideas, where most of you know my head lives most of the
time, let’s start on the ground level and talk about the
government with a little g. The government that we all
interact with daily.
To start, let’s talk about how much of the government you
can see and understand.
In South Orange, we have been recognized state-wide,
regionally and nationally for setting the example on how to
be a transparent government. We don’t have enough time
tonight to go over everything we have done in this regard,
but let me make sure to make you all aware of a few of
them:
- Not only do we continue to post budget information on
the website as has been done in the past, but we do so

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with a mind towards not just what we share, but how we
share it, now with a spreadsheet you can download,
manipulate and do whatever you want with, and as of
2013 we ported five years of budget data into a
visualization tool that allows you to really explore where
your money is going, run reports, make comparisons and
hopefully feel like you can get a solid understanding of our
finances and budget.
- Beyond that for 2015, I have added 25 thousand
dollars into the budget that has been presented to the
trustees, for a Citizen Guided Budget Line, a small pot
of money that residents get to decide where it goes -
whether they want it right back in their pockets or
towards a new program, to supplement existing
programs, or anything else. This will not only give
residents complete, direct access to making a budget
decision, but it will show us, as representatives,
where our community’s priorities lie. This will be done
through the Peak Democracy software platform we
have purchased for the purpose of online
engagement with our residents, in a productive
fashion, about issues in town.
- The Peak Democracy platform is one of the several
engagement and communication initiatives of the

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Public Information and Marketing Committee, which is
a group where, with the assistance of just a couple
village officials, residents are helping direct the
projects that will help our village be better branded
and better prepared to not just communicate with the
community within South Orange, but to the
community beyond, as we’ll cover later, that’s an area
where we need to improve on.
- In our Board meetings, we made some simple changes
that have major impacts, such as rotating the order in
which things are voted on, so each vote starts with the
next person in line, rather than someone always being
forced to vote first, and someone always getting to vote
last. We also added a second public comment period to
every meeting, both before and after we take any action.
And after those comment periods, unlike many towns, we
run through the list of questions and complaints brought
up and try our best to address them right there, or get
back to the person with more information after the
meeting. We held a leadership summit at Seton Hall
University, that was directed by students, some of whom
are here tonight, and one of their thoughts was that the
frustration of governments not even recognizing or
engaging with difficult questions makes people less likely

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to want to participate. I agree, I think we all do, which is
why we do it differently here.
- All of the trustee committee reports now are asked to be,
and usually are outlined ahead of time, so that if you want
a quick update on what a committee is doing, or my report
for a meeting, you can get some bullet points ahead of
time on the publicly released agenda and then you can
decide whether you want to go to the meeting or tune-in.
The process by which agenda items get submitted, which
used to be an email with a vague one sentence request
and no backup material, is used without really any
problem now - where people complete a form that requires
background information, supporting documentation and
some context and explanation, a measure that was not
always supported, but has since shown to help provide the
governing body and public with more information.
- My official office hours every week have been attended
by, at last count, 160 people since starting, and hundreds
more have visited my “un-official” office hours, just doing
work downtown where people can just stop over and ask
questions. Accessibility to all of our elected officials has
expanded, and it’s almost impossible to go to any event

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around town and not see at least one of our elected
officials there, ready to represent the village in their
capacity as a trustee, and ready to take feedback back to
the whole group. We see this constantly, for example
through neighborhood meetings after Hurricane Sandy
and many meetings with different groups of people around
development on Irvington Ave, and senior citizens and
public safety issues, especially. It is not hard to find or get
in contact with us, and that’s how we like it. We have an
expectation on our Board that you will be accessible to
that degree, and I think people in town know that.
- We launched our 311 service, SO Connect, which is
powered by public stuff, which has fielded, as of tonight
over 2,200 requests for service. SO Connect is connecting
citizens directly to the department responsible, without
requiring they go through an elected official to get it done,
which slows the process down, gives volunteer elected
officials *more* work to do and encourages political
favoritism through very transactional relationships. SO
Connect was recently featured in new stories on CBS 2
News, News 12, and FiOS 1 last week in relation to
people submitting complaints about snow removal.

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And there’s many, many more including one of my
favorites, which is simply trying our best to explain
complicated issues to people and trying to make the
reasoning behind decisions as easy to understand and
find as possible, even if we can’t ultimately appease the
request the resident is making. Whether it’s the order the
roads are paved or why we’re switching water companies,
which is something we are doing and is an
accomplishment and feat of this village deserving of it’s
own night.
Yes, just a reminder, South Orange will be finally switching
away from East Orange Water Commission and will be
using New Jersey American Water instead - a decision
that has literally taken years of work to get to, and will
benefit all of us and future generations.
But there is an important distinction I want to make here
before we move off the subject of transparency. This is not
the kind of distinction that typically helps you win you a re-
election, but to take some words from President Obama - I
have no more campaigns to run.

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There is a big difference between personal accessibility
and accountability and institutional accessibility and
accountability. There are mayors who will give you their
cell phone numbers and setup job interviews and as
issues come in, just take care of them one by one in a
reactionary and transactional, but indeed very responsive
fashion, trying to make individual people happy one by
one as issues arise. But that’s not what I’ve done or the
kind of government I believe in. Sure, I’ve given my cell
phone number out publicly,especially during the storms
we’ve had, but it’s not about doing that. That doesn’t fix
the problem. It doesn’t advance the institution. It
advances the political actor individually, with the institution
riding on their coat tails.
There are no doubt some people who probably find me
less than what they expect typical politician
responsiveness to be. But I’m not interested in making
endorsements during campaigns, not really interested in
attending political events, not interested in taking personal
phone calls when it’s more appropriate for a staff
members to be taking point on the issue, nor am I trying to
make each individual person happy, rather, my job, the job
of this public institution is to make decisions that perform
the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of

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people. I’ve been emailed and asked about jobs in town
who knows how many times at this point, and those
people get a link to the employment page on the website,
and if it’s for a job and I happen to know an applicant, I’m
specifically staying out of it, not inserting myself into it. I’m
not interested in anyone doing me favors, nor am I
interested in giving any out. I’m interested in a government
that makes people because the whole institution works
well, and people know that services are delivered in an
equitable fashion.
Our transactional political environments often encourage
people to actually create an over-reliance on themselves,
as the political actors, some by mistake, and some to
guarantee their future in the organization. I’ve done
everything I can do to create the opposite of that culture,
and instead to ensure that anything we do, we do as an
institution, not on the shoulders of one elected official.
To that end, we’ve tried to make, and I think successfully
so, our entire government more accessible, more
transparent, more accountable and more responsive. You
shouldn’t need to know an elected official or be connected
to a single one of us to get something done, get an answer

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to a question or get the same level of service as anyone
else. That’s not government I believe in, and it’s not the
kind of governing the people who created our country
believed in. Requesting service from the Department of
Public Works isn’t and shouldn’t be a political issue. But by
simply creating a 311 system, for example, to route those
complaints directly to the people responsible for fixing
them, we can start connecting citizens to government in a
more direct way, where politics and “connections” don’t
come into play, where people get service faster and where
we can collect data to measure and improve our future
performance - an issue near and dear to all of us,
especially to Trustee Levison who leads the Finance and
IT Committee and is working with the administration on
setting some of those performance benchmarks right now.
What we’re doing here, tonight and in general, it isn’t
about me, or any one person. It’s not even about what we
can do this year, or what we can do before the next
election. It’s about the greater good of this organization,
serving the greater good of this community, not just now,
but for those who will come after. This organization should
be able to continue to use those values to guide its
progress whether I’m here or any of our elected officials
are here or not. In my opinion, a good leader instills these

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values in the institution and the culture, and actually
makes themselves almost obsolete in doing so.
It’s a topic we cover in the class I’ve started to teach at
Seton Hall, and I think it’s a topic worth bringing up,
because it rarely is, in a public setting like this. Although I
may be the face of the transparency, or anything else, that
occurs, good or bad, in the village, because I am the top
elected official, the focus, this entire time has been
building the institutional capacity and culture.
With credit to everyone in this room, I believe we have
done that, and our government will only continue to find
ways to be more accessible. Whether it’s Trustee
Schnall’s initiatives to get more volunteers involved and
organize how we do that kind of reach and finally put
together a dynamic online discussion forum or Trustee
Collum’s efforts at coordinating major improvements in
how we meet the needs of senior citizens or supporting
our police department’s community engagement practices,
or Trustee Rosner’s work with the development committee
in helping involve experts in the process of productively
contributing ideas towards our future redevelopment, there
is much work going on that is transparent, participatory
and productive.

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To help ensure that this continues that way, and it isn’t
only informally done, I will be shortly introducing an
ordinance to the Board that I wrote with the help of The
Citizens Campaign, the Sunlight Foundation, several other
elected officials, our professional staff and will be
discussed in trustee committees, which for the first time
possibly in the entire state of New Jersey, takes all of
these best practices and codifies them into law so that
everyone who follows us knows what is expected of them
from a transparency perspective. This ordinance will
require the disclaimer that we added to all outgoing emails
notifying people the communication is public, which many
people don’t know, will require the Village President
attempt to respond to every public comment made at a
Board meeting, and will require information be stored in
more accessible, searchable formats, among many other
stipulations.
So yes, transparency is important. Anyone running for
office will say so. But they’ll usually say they are being
transparent, whereas here, we are institutionalizing it in a
way that will continue to grow and outlive any one of us,
and that’s something that is a real accomplishment.

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Let’s move on to our budget and finances.
[slide]
Taxes for as long as I can remember and most of you can,
have been incredibly high in South Orange. For the
municipal portion, we have only a limited ability to make a
major impact, as we only receive 28% of each dollar that
homeowners pay in property taxes. Moreover, much of the
28% that we receive is locked into fixed costs and bills that
we get, salaries for employees that are negotiated through
contracts, insurance premiums, we get a bill for, utility
costs and other items that we have very little control over..
But, even so, last year’s tax levy increase was the lowest
in over 15 years, and we are on track to do the same for
2015, again, hopefully under 1% or right around there for
2015. In fact, the tax levy increases in 2011, 2012, 2013
and 2014 were, all the lowest increases since at least as
far back as 1999.
Every year the increases are going down, and we have
gotten to a place where not only have we stabilized the
budget, with the number of new properties that are
revenue positive that will be coming on board next year
and the year after, the village will be in an even better

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position to limit tax increases even more, maybe even
start to chip away at the actual numbers, and that will
continue as we continue to invest in the downtown.
As I mentioned, costs are hard to cut, especially without
cutting services that we know are one of the hallmarks of
living here in South Orange. So instead, enormous focus
has been put on generating new sources of revenue,
which as a local government, it’s one of the few areas
where we actually have a pretty fair ability to make an
impact - and we have. But this didn’t come easy. Our staff,
most notably in building and engineering are incredibly
responsive to developers and business owners, and our
land use boards are working with applicants to help them
understand how to get projects done within our guidelines,
not stand in the way of progress.
In the last four years, including both projects that have
been completed, and projects underway - not including
several projects that will almost double this number that
may take root in the next 3-6 months, we have been able
to create more than 165 million dollars of private
investment in South Orange
[164,000,000 (development) + storefront renovations]

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And this is a conservative calculation, as it doesn’t include
dozens of smaller investments in storefront renovations
and new businesses that add up to more than ten million
dollars. And this doesn’t include 2-3 development projects
that are too early to fairly include in this number. And for
transparency’s sake, this number was arrived at by using
● Underway: 3rd & Valley $ 65,000,000
● Completed: Gateway $ 15,000,000
● Proposed/Underway: Lustbader (115 units) $
35,000,000
● Propose/Underway: Church St. (160 Units) $
48,000,000
● Underway: Rescue Squad $ 1,100,000
And this isn’t just for providing new homes in South
Orange for people to move to, which itself is an amazing
thing to think us having the ability to do - allow more
people to move into and call this community their home - it
isn’t just for foot traffic to our business and for the
downtown, it’s for turning an underutilized piece of
property into something that makes a major contribution to
our budget, helping us to control your taxes.

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The Third and Valley project will provide 255 public
parking spaces, an increase of around 70 public spaces
more than we had before, and 215 apartments, with 21 of
those affordable, which, by the way, will be the first new
onsite affordable units built in South Orange’s history in
the downtown. This project will also be taking a piece of
municipal property that was tax exempt and turning into a
property generating over $570,000 to our budget every
year, with automatic increases built in. That is a huge
additional revenue when you consider the total municipal
budget is $33.5 million, and the tax levy is about $22
million The new revenue from 3rd & Valley represents
about 1.5% of the budget, right there, in one year, in one
property, coming from something that was generating
nothing previously. You can think of it this way: if we had
to raise the same $570,000 in new taxes instead, the
average assessed homeowner would pay an additional
$116.89. And again, this is just one project, that will have
that level of impact
And from a larger development perspective the future of
population growth shows people are moving towards
transit focused urban and semi-urban environments, and
the more we in-fill property that is already “developed” the

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more we can protect South Orange’s and New Jersey’s
beautiful, beautiful areas that should never, ever be
developed on. We have gained recognition state-wide on
numerous occasions for the smart and sustainable
development we’re doing. The difference in perception out
there, when I attend events and meet with people in other
parts of the state, and get asked to participate on panels
and lead discussions, and get introduced to new
developers, is 180 degrees from what it was four years
ago, when I had to go out to beg to get a developer to
come to South Orange - and now we get emails almost
every week or two from someone looking to invest in
South Orange. And considering how many business
owners who already own property are deciding to now
reinvest in new properties in South Orange, that’s the
ultimate endorsement of the confidence in our shared
future.
And we’re doing this development with an eye towards
sustainability. Because caring for our planet and doing
what we can to reduce our impact is a value we share.
Not only do our jitney’s run on biodiesel and more and
more of our municipal vehicle fleet is made up of more fuel

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efficient and hybrid vehicles, but we’re doing major
renovations of buildings like Village Hall with an eye
towards sustainability by improving HVAC efficiency and
with the plan to do geothermal. The 3rd and Valley project
will be LEED silver, and we hope any future municipal
building renovations will earn a LEED certification,
something we could require if we want to. We have
electric vehicle chargers in the downtown, and at the new
Gateway apartments. We have car sharing in our
downtown that’s been so widely used by residents that
zipcar added a third vehicle to the fleet recently. We’re
building our complete streets programs, tightening
regulations around impermeable surfaces, requiring new
buildings to have bicycle storage, and will even start to
have bike racks on our jitneys this upcoming year.
Citizens and government are working together to help
residents understand the value and make decisions about
solarizing their home. The best example of these
collaborations is that one of our former environmental
commission superstars, Walter Clarke is now a trustee,
and has been able to continue his great work around
environmental issues, for example taking point with
Howard Levison on solving our water problems, and

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working with our engineering office on a number of others,
as an elected official on the Board.
I was in Costa Rica in January, and after being amazed as
I rode a motorcycle through the mountains of the country,
at how many wind farms I saw, I looked up the statistics
on renewable energy in Costa Rica and found that over
99% of the country’s energy comes from renewable
sources. In the US it’s around 11 or 12%. By no means is
it fair to compare the two side by side, but we all know we
can and need to be doing better. So what if our federal
government can’t seem to make enough progress, let’s
show them how it’s done by setting an example in South
Orange, let’s set our own goal for us to hit regarding
where our municipal and town-wide energy use comes
from and work towards that. There are at least 30 solar
installations on private homes, and another 140 have
expressed interest in a system. Let’s keep that moving,
and keep improving what we do. Let’s show ‘em all how
it’s done.
Speaking of setting example, there aren’t many places
better to look to that than our police department.
[slide]

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Crime is going down in South Orange. Every year. And
last year to this year, we saw around a 20% decrease - in
one year, most of that in the “thefts” category, where the
diligence of our officers, especially our detectives, is a
reputation that is known. Our officers are incredibly
diligent, our detectives are creative and move fast, and our
technology is getting better and better at supporting them
in showing people how big of a mistake it is to come to
South Orange and commit a crime.
- We could spend the whole night here listening to
stories of our police department solving crimes, when
threats were made online anonymously directed
towards Seton Hall’s campus, the out of state person
was tracked down through a multi-agency
cooperative, was quickly found, or someone posing
as selling iPhones on Craigslist with the intention of
robbing the people who he would arrange meetings
with, who was tracked by our detectives and arrested.
Our officers stay ahead of the curve when it comes to
technology, from tracking movements and finding
early warning signs when we had “flash mob”
problems in our downtown, to the above mentioned
crimes.

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Our investments in the Police Department, which we value
so highly, includes the strengthening of our technology,
improving internet speeds, buying new cameras which are
unbelievably valuable in solving crime, purchasing of new
vehicles, that are now all wheel drive for inclement
weather, a brand new Records Management and
Computer Aided Dispatch system, and doing the biggest
overhaul to our radio system that’s ever been done in this
town, that when completed will literally put us on the
cutting edge of communications technology in the state
and country. Our investments include reshuffling space
and expanding the work environment for the detective
bureau, fixing up several aspects of the PD’s HQ that were
in desperate need of attention, and a process set in
motion to do a much more major overhaul. Many of these
initiatives came from dozens of community meetings and
programs, from discussions with Seton Hall students to
senior citizens, and all with an eye towards
professionalism and courtesy, which builds enormous
trust, for good reason, in our community around our police.
I’ve personally seen these men and women, not just as
the Village President, but as a volunteer with the Rescue
Squad, and they don’t hesitate to get their hands dirty,
sometimes, very dirty, to do what they can to help. This

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year, we’re even launching a good behavior citation where
our police will reward youths for their good actions, not just
stop the bad ones.
It’s worth especially these days, reflecting on the true
character of some of our officers, as being a police officer
is not just about catching the bad guys, but helping the
good guys -> Story from Lonero about medical call.
We were able to add a brand new ladder truck to our fleet,
at very little cost to the Village because of some
meticulous grant writing, and we have seen a change in
leadership as our longtime Chief Jeff Markey retired, and
the department has been handed to Acting Chief Sullivan,
with a permanent appointment imminent, which will lead
our department through another generation of growth and
professionalism. This is a fire department that has literally
led the way in the entire nation for fire safety in
collaboration with Seton Hall. Our department has gone on
over 1,800 many calls, including assisting with heavy
rescue operations on several serious motor vehicle
accidents, and they do so professionally and competently,
as they occupy our iconic and historic firehouse
downtown. They respond to smoke alarms, to downed

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trees, to downed wires, to flooding conditions to medical
calls needing rescue operations, and they are there in
seconds ready to assist in whatever way is needed - I’ve
been on many calls and seen them work both knocking
down fires in minutes before it can spread to the next
house, and assisting in medical and other situations and
they do a fantastic job.
Our Rescue squad, which is almost entirely donation
funded, with only the smallest support from the village,
operates something truly incredible, and I know that from
both being on the rescue squad since 2010 as well as
being the Village President. They responded to more calls
last year than years past, with a total volume of 1255 calls,
including over 200 to Maplewood, and mutual aid to
Newark, West Orange, Millburn and even Jersey City.
They’ve created a cadet program, bringing dozens of high
school students onto shifts, teaching them not only
valuable medical knowledge but real leadership and
teamwork skills you can only learn when someone else’s
life is literally on the line. And in addition to the well over
15,000 volunteer hours put in on shifts and responding to
calls, yes, 15,000 hours, the members found the time to
run the organization and participate in drills at Newark

31. 31
Airport, and teach over a dozen school classes in our
schools and with community groups.
Our Department of Public Works. Another busy winter for
them.
They don’t always get thought about in the public safety
category, but boy do they deserve to, as they are out there
when the weather is at the worst, not just salting and
plowing and clearing debris so people can get to work and
where they need to be the next day, but ensuring that
emergency vehicles, during the worst of weather, can get
to you if you need them.
Outside of that, through the year though, DPW collected
1,200 tons of recycling material, which netted us over
$150,000 in revenue. They planted 70 trees, pruned 400,
inspected an additional 100 trees, removed 125 trees and
ground 100 stumps. Part of this is in reaction to the
damage that old and ailing trees caused during the storms
we had in 2011 and 2012, and our DPW is going to
continue to be proactive about inspecting and fixing where
necessary.

32. 32
And remember, if you think something needs to be looked
at, hop on your mobile phone or computer and submit the
request right to them with our SOConnect app, which
DPW used to respond to over 400 direct issues this year.
We also have to thank DPW working with our engineering
office for all the work they’ve done to help beautify and
improve many of our parks, playgrounds and public
spaces, including a lot of the work around Spiotta Park
and in other areas of the downtown.
We’re also looking at plans to elevate the offices in their
garage on Walton by building a second floor to reduce the
impact severe weather has on their operations, finally
providing some relief for them from the weather they battle
with to keep us all safe.
Our public library, which as we find ourselves in a constant
mission to provide equitable access to information and
opportunity finds itself in a more and more important
position in our society, is on its 150th year in South
Orange.

33. 33
I was walking down the street one night in Manhattan and
had a thought that I should mention here, especially as the
library embarks on plans to not only renovate and restore
it’s now main building, but the beautiful historic Connett
building.Look at quality of architecture that went into
these buildings in the time period they were built in this
country.. libraries, schools, and other government or public
buildings,including not just our original library building, but
our Village Hall and Firehouse, among others. The
incredible care and detail exemplified in these buildings, it
shows our commitment to these public services. And our
library is no different.
Last year, 10,250 people attended 515 library programs, in
addition to 50 programs held by community groups. And a
whopping 77,800 items were checked out (about 6%
downloadable). And on top of that, they answered 13,000
reference desk questions and issues 1,200 new library
cards.
Our administration and our finance office is one of the
most streamlined in local government. And the people
working there are constantly trying to find ways to make

34. 34
things work better, to use less paper, to optimize how
quickly data is processed - all of these optimizations
saving us time and money. And working together with our
board, most notably Howard Levison as Chair of the
Trustee Finance Committee, we’ve restructured our long
term debt to take advantage of historically low interest
rates, saving taxpayers literally millions of dollars over the
life of the debt. We have also implemented a debt
reduction policy where we have paid down at least a half
million dollars more in debt that new debt authorized, for
three years in a row, and 2015 will make a fourth year in a
row that we are responsibly paying down our debt instead
of adding to it.
Working with Trustee Davis Ford, Chair of the Legal and
Personnel Committee, our Administration has overhauled
our personnel policy manual, upgraded our employee
performance evaluation program, encouraged much more
professional development and training in our staff. We
have also increased accountability for our staff and
implemented a single source employer medical
relationship for pre-employment physicals, workers
compensation injuries, and sick leave verification. The
result is a dramatic reduction in lost work days.

35. 35
Our IT department has built out a hardware infrastructure
that allows us power the mobile data usage that is getting
more and more built into operations at the police
department, fire department, code enforcement and
others, where they can use computers and tablets in the
field to access and sync information. Our IT experience
and expertise let to us now providing IT services for
Maplewood, a service which we are now one full year into,
which generates revenue for South Orange while vastly
improving Maplewood’s IT backbone. This is something
we hope to expand to other towns, doing our part to help
create regional cost-sharing initiatives.
As we modernize from an IT perspective, that brings about
modernization everywhere. Our village codes, many of
which have been out of date and disorganized, are being
brought up to modern standards and better organization,
through a recodification process, and the same time,
improving many of our internal regulations and policies.
Agendas will soon be entirely created electronically, and
the packets and supporting information will be part of
cloud-based workflow that will eliminate paper from the
process entirely, make the agenda creation process easier
and make it even easier to access public documents
through a major upgrade to our records systems,

36. 36
laserfiche, much of which are initiatives being led and run
out of our Clerk’s Office.
Our Engineering Department continues to improve our
infrastructure, reconstructing and repaving roads, and
overseeing improvements to our buildings, facilities and
parks across town.
Our Building Department has seen record years, with
business booming from all of the redevelopment activity I
discussed above, as well as many major projects by our
great partner in the Village, Seton Hall University. In fact,
building department revenues have risen from about
$350,000 in 2011 to over $1 million in 2014, and that’s
important, not to just the revenue, but to show how
remarkably active people are right now in investing back
into their properties in South Orange.
Our Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department continues
to host amazing art projects and galleries through the
Pierro Gallery, and offer sports, programming, classes and
activities that meet the needs of all of our residents, young
and old, and they assist in some of our most well-attended

37. 37
public events in and around town, from the historic softball
game, to opening day for our little league to many of our
concerts.
Our Tax Department, under the direction of our Tax
Collector, while not always seen as the most glamorous
job, is vital to our operations and continues to excel,
routinely boasting tax collection rates around 99%, much
higher than many local governments.
Our Health Department has made great strides in
connecting resources to the community, for example
hosting health fairs every year that increase both the
number of people who attend and the kinds of services
offered.
Also, while not a Department, an equally important part of
our success derives from the expertise, advice and hard
work of our Village professionals, including Village
Counsel, Redevelopment Counsel, our Village Planner,
and all of our other professionals.

38. 38
And we’re doing all of this while having fun!
Our relatively new South Orange Village Center Alliance,
and it’s working groups are keeping the downtown clean,
helping businesses renovate and new ones move in, and
helping us hold a ton of fantastic events.
Play Day in the downtown, sure to become one of
SOVCA’s signature events, was a massive success, as
was the historic softball game played where some of the
greats have walked. We held a food truck festival on
Irvington Avenue which brought in between 2,500 and
3,000 people from in town and out of town to an area they
didn’t necessarily know was teeming with great new
businesses.
We had more firsts this year too - our first official volunteer
appreciation event, thanking some of the people, some of
whom are here tonight for all the work they do. We had
our first menorah lighting to go with a christmas tree
lighting in as long as anyone can remember. And of
course, our movies in the park, Downtown after sundown,

39. 39
and concerts in the park brought in record attendance
levels and just were a hell of a good time.
And speaking of record attendance levels, the South
Orange Performing Arts Center has improved the
programming it offers, has improved how efficient its
operations are run, has gotten more grants, supported
more local arts and theater programming and every day is
becoming more and more of an institution in our
community that we find ourselves struggling to remember
having lived without.
And that only the scratches the surface of how much all of
our employees do on a regular basis.
Let’s think about it this way, to wrap up this section of
tonight’s talk….here’s a number
slide with 19

40. 40
No, that’s not how old I was when I was elected. Or how
many minutes are left in tonight’s talk. Or the temperature,
actually that last one might be right.
This number is how many pennies it costs each
homeowner for every hour of police services. Nineteen
cents. Per home. Per hour.
That’s almost a half dozen police patrol officers on the
street, several more detectives and dispatchers working,
all of whom are incredibly well trained and community
conscious. Nineteen cents an hour, is $4.62 per day. For
about what most people pay for home internet and TV you
get not just the benefit of police ready to respond to your
call in a time of need, but the proactive benefits this
community gets from having a reputation as a place where
police solve crimes as much as they do.
This makes it hard not to believe in what collective action
through our government can accomplish. There are
people out there, a few even in this community, who do
nothing but talk about problems with government, and they
attack anyone who tries to defend the potential of what

41. 41
government can do if it’s done right. But in the constant
desire to paint a bad picture, or attack people who are
trying to help, they miss the real story. The story of what
happens when things do go right, and how we learn from
them, how we share them, and how, simply to make more
of them. It’s the story of progress.
There is still the reality, of course, that when you do add
all that up, and the costs to the county and schools, the
taxes here are no doubt high, and although I think I’ve
outlined both the ways in which we’ve helped cut costs
and bring new revenue in, I hope, and do believe, that
most people live here because they fully understand and
have access to understand the immense value - the
quality - that not just a good village with a lowercase v can
provide, but what the larger one, the entire community, is
worth. And as someone who grew up here, who has lived
almost their entire life in Maplewood and South Orange,
and knows that who I am today was shaped by this
community, I know the value is priceless.
Speaking what the entire community is worth, let’s take a
little conceptual and philosophical adventure into what big

42. 42
G government means and why it’s so important for us to
talk about and think about here tonight.
Most of what we’ve heard so far you can think about as
the output side. We heard about the incredible
performance of the institution of government we have, and
just a taste of our plans for how we’re going to keep
improving it. But like I said before, that’s only one part of
the picture. Talking only about the institution of
government is like treating symptoms not the causes. The
other side is how we can think about the broader picture,
which you can think about almost as the input: How does
the institution get created? Where does it come from?
How is the framework thought about and advanced? In it’s
most basic form: What is all the stuff that goes into making
all those things that we just talked about actually happen?
It’s difficult to talk about, much less, understand, much
less measure. But we’ll do our best tonight to do so.
There is an incredibly basic starting point that is worth
mentioning but I don’t think we have the time to get fully
into.

43. 43
This basic starting point is this: How a person goes from
living in a particular environment, without necessarily
understanding or or even really genuinely interacting with
it, work -> eat -> watch netflix -> sleep -> repeat; to
becoming an active participant in that environment,
interacting with it and understanding it, and understanding
the limits of their understanding;to then acquiring the
agency of the idea of themselves being able to actually
not just live in, not just interact with, but to actually have
the idea and knowledge that they can change that
environment; to the last step, which is actually becoming
actively involved in shaping it. This idea, and this pathway
is a key component to something I spend a fair amount of
my time studying, and will continue to for much of this
year, as it underpins the entire concept of participatory
governance and democracy. We don’t have a great
understanding how people move along that pathway from
being governed to doing the governing, and what things
can stop them from doing so, and what things can help
them do so.
Several years ago, it was not uncommon to have a dozen
or more people at our board meetings, sometimes up to
hundred or more when a specific issue arose, often people

44. 44
with specific feedback, usually in the form of a complaint
or request for some type of service. The meetings were
longer and we spent more time behind closed doors in
executive session. We fielded more complaints at our
meetings, often complaints about things that could have
been easily resolved without the person having to spend
all of that energy to leave their home on a weekday night,
appear on TV and confront us sitting up high on our dais,
especially in such a non-interactive and kind of
oppositional setting.
These days, it is not uncommon now for our Board
meetings to have one person or two people, sometimes
with no comments at all, even as we take action on
important and very well publicly noticed pieces of action.
So what happened? Has our entire town become more
apathetic? Do we do everything perfect? Or did something
else much more interesting happen?
I believe what has happened is we have begun a
transformation in the culture of this big G Government.
Government isn’t just a place you go complain to when
something doesn’t work the right way, it’s not just a
vending machine. A vending machine where you put your

45. 45
tax dollars in, select your services, and pick it up from the
drawer, hoping what you selected doesn’t get stuck on
one of the little wires, and force you try to shake the
machine to get what you were expecting and paid for. This
is how, in many places people interact with their
government, and how it used to feel here. [one of my
favorite government analogies]
But now, more than ever in South Orange, our
government isn’t a vending machine you have to shake to
get what you paid for out of it, rather it’s a place you can
go to when you have an idea on how to improve
something. It’s a place you can go to participate and add
value to your surroundings and derive some value for
yourself too.
Now, you can’t just go to a place and make it productive,
wave a magic wand, and this group of people is now
dividing projects up, keeping track of their goals and
working towards something in a collaborative fashion. It’s
something that everyone who is a leader in the system
has to be on board with, and be able to set the right
example for everyone else. We now have with our
governing body, which we did not used to have, and

46. 46
assuming your larger population has some of the
prerequisites as we do here, you start to create a culture
where goal is advancing the organization, even if in certain
areas of the organization needs some real serious TLC,
rather than abandoning it, or calling for it’s destruction, or
constantly talking about its worthlessness or inability to do
things, which is how some people approach interacting
with government.
That attitude not only doesn’t get us anywhere, but it
creates an environment of negativity that actively
contributes to things only getting worse as the person
wanting to help worries, for fear of being lumped in with all
those bad things, about actually getting involved first hand.
But those aren’t the mainstream values anymore, not here
in South Orange. Rather the values more so these days
seem to be respecting the process and institution, even if
that means being critical of it, because the goals are
advancement, collaboration and progress, with the
understanding this government is ours to control and use
as we see fit. And if we want to use it for making things
better, well that’s a fundamental right, and responsibility
we have as Americans and as members of this particular
community, to do just that.

47. 47
We could measure how many people are on committees
now, active committees, which is a big distinction itself,
which is literally in the hundreds between the Public
Information and Marketing committee, our existing
statutory boards, the library board, the Friends of the
Library, the Community Coalition on Race, the Community
Relations Committee, the Environmental Commission, the
newly re-named Seton Village Advisory Committee, the
unbelievably successful South Orange Village Center
Alliance, the Transportation Advisory Committee, the
Senior Citizens Committee, the Development Committee,
our many ad hoc single issue committees, and so many
more…. we could add up the number of active people on
neighborhood watches lists, thanks in large part to Janine
Buckner, which totals in the thousands, we can look at all
the active and growing neighborhood associations and
block parties and events.
But this isn’t about the numbers, this isn’t a measurement
of quantity it’s a measurement of quality - we have a
community that genuinely values itself, and values being
active, and values being constructive, and values the role
that they as residents, and we as the institution of
government can play together. This is not a small feat.
And it isn’t something that is important to think about just

48. 48
within the borders of South Orange. Our community has
always had those values, to some degree. And now that
our political leaders, the people in this room have those
values too, it’s only bringing more people into the process
and creating more environments for collaboration.
Let’s take a moment to place this culture in a larger
context. Obviously this has massive benefit to South
orange, as much of the work I’ve talked about tonight
couldn’t have been done without not just productive and
collaborative elected officials, but without productive and
collaborative community members. But there is something
bigger than that at play too. Collectively, we, as a state, as
a nation and as a world are facing some unbelievable
issues and challenges.
Every day these challenges seem to multiply in their
quantity, in their seriousness, in their complexity and in
their future consequences. Let’s be real: Between urban
violence here in the US and abroad, taking the lives of
tens of thousands per year and wrecking economic
opportunities in areas that need it most, poverty, lack of
access to food, shelter and clean drinking water, a state, a
country and a world where there is simultaneously hunger

49. 49
and starvation as well as food-obsession and obesity,
urban over-crowding, major infrastructure problems that
seriously threaten our safety and our economic future,
ethnic, religious or other historical disputes around the
world that seem to be intensifying and that subsequently
drive extremism in political views elsewhere in the world,
warfare that is becoming more deadly, less accountable
and more easily proliferated, technology that is changing
the very nature of our existence, our thinking, our
interactions, literally, slowly changing what it means to be
human with almost no discussion or understanding of that,
and an entire planet that is reacting to our industrialized
habitation of it in ways that could have the most serious
consequences for us and future generations. And I could
go on. All of these things are real, and they are happening
right now, no matter how much we try to isolate ourselves
from it - some just miles down the road some thousands of
miles across the world.
Yet, somehow as these massive and real problems grow,
and as our ability to learn grows, and our access to
knowledge and science and data grows, and as our ability
to quickly access and talk to other people and cultures
grows, our institutions of governments, especially at larger
levels appear, every day, less and less capable of actually

50. 50
doing anything about any of it. Our leaders appear to be
more and more divided as they are forced to posture for
their party’s own self interests, or run for re-election in
political environments that are superficial, drowning with
anonymous money and just downright bloodthirsty as
many attempt to hijack the system for their own interests
leaving the rest fighting to hold on for the good guys. And
our citizens, they appear to be becoming more civically
apathetic as they lose faith in the leaders and institutions
that are supposed to be bringing us together and forward
not driving us apart and us taking us backwards. Frankly, I
think many of us on a daily basis simply feel overwhelmed,
confused and frustrated, but we’re not sure with what
exactly. We know it’s happening.But we don’t really know
what to do about it, or what it is. We haven’t even figured
out how to talk about these things that bother us. There is
a suicide every 12 minutes in the United States. How can
we have everything that we have, and be so connected as
we believe we are, and be such a developed nation, and
yet every 12 minutes someone takes their own life, a
relative number even higher for people who have already
sacrificed so much for all of us in military service.
Now what does this have to do with the state of this
village? Good question.

51. 51
We all live in this world. And whether we want to believe it
or not, or think about it or not, all of those things I just
talked about are not only monumentally important on their
own terms, but they impact our lives, and the lives of the
generations that will come after us, directly and in ways
that deserve the most urgent attention.
And although so many of those problems exist, the
leadership environments, the places where problems are
supposed to be solved are more often than not echo
chambers filled with empty rhetoric based on anger,
hatred and intentional divisiveness that only gets us
farther from a solution.
But that’s not why we need to talk about it. We need to talk
about it because it’s not just about the impact these things
have on us, it’s about the impact that we need to have on
them.

52. 52
Now, there are a few people like that in this town, but not
many, maybe a half dozen or dozen at most I think, and
although they still go about their lives in a fashion that’s
built on divisiveness, and do things like generally pursue a
line of public, often anonymous or online discussion that is
entirely focused on the negative and entirely driven by
anger towards everything and everyone with whom they
don’t agree. But those people are not here tonight and no
longer do they really play a role or even influence much of
anything that happens in town anymore. The anger, the
intentional dividing of people for personal or political gains,
the personal attacks, the hatred, the back stabbing, the
egoism…. things that we have all come to almost expect
in “politics” to some degree, doesn’t really exist in our
political environment anymore. It’s been replaced by
something much better - residents, and business owners
and students and elected officials and other community
members who value constructive critical feedback,
honesty, fact-finding, duty, community and collective
progress. These are their values - and their goals are a
better South Orange. That’s why those people are
involved. Not to get something for themselves, or for one
interest group - but because they believe in the future and
a constantly improving South Orange. And that’s amazing,
in itself.

53. 53
This culture of big G government, our collective actions,
and what we incentivize and what we allow and value as a
community, and how those ideas and values are codified
into policy and the institutions that carry out those policies
is an outlier, for sure. It is not normal. And it hasn’t always
even existed in South Orange. And it doesn’t in most
places. But that’s why it needs to be talked about it.
Although our responsibility is to encourage this kind of
respectful and collaborative culture here in town, our
responsibility does not end where the next town’s border
begins. We don’t live in a vacuum, and because we are
living in a world and in a country where the government,
with a big g or little g, appears incapable right now of
doing what we are doing, we have to tell our story.
This isn’t about marketing, or about spin or about photo-
ops or anything along those lines that some people who
don’t understand the true meaning of why we’re all here
sometimes call it. It isn’t even about any one of us, it’s
about the role that each of us plays in the larger story.

54. 54
A story of a culture of real collaboration, where when you
know you’re doing something right, you don’t protect it,
and hold it close to wield the power that comes with
owning that resource, but rather you take that information
and you tell the world, you broadcast it, and you write
about it, and you tweet about it, and you email about it and
you shout it from the rooftops - you do everything in your
power, which we have a lot of in 2015, to shine light on an
example of good Government in an effort to help others
find a way to do the same.
And that’s what we’re here to do. All of us. Figure out what
good government means, whether it’s the property tax rate
or the culture around how to contribute your ideas to your
community, how to recycle more efficiently or how to
report gaslamp outages better.
Our job is to figure out what those things are, and our job
is bring people into that process, people who want to
contribute, and find a role for anyone who wants to add a
value to it. And we have tremendous human capital in this
community to do that. That’s the input side, the big G
Government.

55. 55
And then our job, in little g government - in the institution -
is to get it done, and we have the employees here that will
do that.
And then our job, all of us, is to tell that story, as i’m
attempting to do tonight here with the tradition of the State
Of The Village which I started in 2011 and will hopefully
carry on into the future.
We have shown that when you have the right input - a
community and governing body committed to progress,
you get the right output - a government that performs
exceptionally well.
The tax increases are going down and the budget is
stabilized. More money and investment is coming into the
town right now than ever before in it’s history. Crime is
going down every single year and our police are building
even more and more trust with our community not only
using their smarts, but using smart technology. Our entire
technology infrastructure is being upgraded and going to
be able to support whatever it is we decide in the future
we want it to support. Our employees, who are being

56. 56
treated with respect and dignity, are performing incredibly
well, and put more passion into their jobs when they know
they’re truly respected. Our roads get plowed when the
snow comes down [just like we saw this past weekend]
Your kids can find an unbelievable array of options of
things to get involved with at the library or at the Baird.
Our arts and cultural standing is not only becoming more
and more known state-wide, but our performing arts center
is becoming an incredibly well visited and respected
institution within South Orange. Our government
operations are more transparent than they ever have
been, and it’s safe to say, I think more than any other town
in the state, and certainly one of the best in the entire
country. Our governing body, Oh, our governing body the
driver of so much of this direction is not focused on petty
personal squabbles, but is mature, and reasonable and
productive, with every single trustee who was introduced
earlier working hard at making a difference, not making a
point, and they are responsive, and long-term and willing
to always put South Orange first. And our community is
involved and finding ways not only to derive value for
themselves in their participation, but adding tremendous
critical value to everyone around them. We have more
events in our downtown and around town than we ever
have, bringing people together in an age when sometimes
technology can actually drive us farther apart. We have so
many new businesses opening up in our downtown,

57. 57
enough that it has brought myself and other members of
the village government around the state talking about
business recruitment and downtown revitalization. We
have a relationship with Seton Hall University that’s more
amicable, and closer than anyone can remember it being,
with excitement and interest not coming from any one
group, but from elected officials, residents, students and
faculty and administrators all at the same time. South
Orange is on the map - no doubt - not just as a place
where the government is performing well, which is just the
easy story to tell, but South Orange is on the map as a
place where people want to visit and want to move and
want to raise their families in and want to be part of,
because the community is performing well.
So yes, I stand here confidently tonight to tell you the state
of the village is strong - both the small v village and the big
V Villlage. And I am not only happy to report that to you
tonight, I am proud, and honored and humbled to have the
opportunity to participate in this epic story with all of you -
not just for what we’re doing here in town, but for the
example we are, and must set, for the rest of the state and
the rest of the country at a time when they need leaders
like us.

58. 58
And I am excited, thrilled and ready for the challenges that
we all will face, because I know, without a drop of
uncertainty that by truly working together, we will meet and
overcome those daunting challenges I mentioned, and
more that we don’t even know yet, challenges here in
South Orange and challenges beyond our borders. And in
doing that, we will show those who don’t yet know the
power inside each of them and all of them together, that
they have the power and ability to shape the world around
them into what we all dream of it to be.
So thank you to everyone for being here tonight and those
of you watching and at home for contributing to what we
have here - this would not be possible without all of you.
Our job is nowhere near done, and no matter what role
any of us plays in this process, I thank you for your service
and your commitment to a better Village and ultimately a
better world. The State of the Village is strong, yes, and I
know and trust it will become stronger, thanks to all of you.
Thank you.