As Councilman Charles Morgan heads into the next year as council president, he says he wants to bring the focus away from trivial issues and back to those that are most important, and that includes bringing closure to the redevelopment discussion.##M:[more]##
Morgan, who has been on council since 1999 and has served as council president twice before, has already made it a priority to move council business along more smoothly, so that issues like redevelopment are given the top priority.
During the reorganization meeting on July 1, Morgan said he would like to return to a differentiation between business meetings and agenda sessions, and in doing so, he, along with a majority of the other council members, made changes to the procedural guidelines governing council business, including moving agenda sessions into the smaller Room C (see story below).
During Will Anklowitz’s tenure this past year as council president, responses to questions during public comment were held until the session of the agenda that specifies comments from the mayor, administration, and council, and Morgan says he intends to do the same. He also says he wants to build on Anklowitz’s omnibus handling of resolutions, and wants to maintain the three-minute limit on public comments, but also limit the number of times council members speak on the same issue. “If this can be accomplished without interruptions from others, the meetings should be shorter and the dialogue should be more productive,” he said.
Morgan has also set forth guidelines describing when the mayor and business administrator should speak from the dais or from the podium. Explains Morgan: “It is important to step to the podium when addressing council, rather than the audience, on a business item initiated by the mayor and/or the administration, and where the speaker wants to step outside of the rules governing us on the dais. For something requiring only a single, brief comment from either the mayor or the administrator, they shouldn’t have to jump over to the podium. For a complex item that requires extended explanations from either of the two, or multiple responses to council questions, they should step to the podium.”
Morgan also says he will also try to manage the agenda so that if there is an important issue that all five members of the council feel strongly about, the issue will not be brought to the table if any one of the members is absent. “It’s really important that each of the five members of council are going to be heard,” he said.
“If there’s anything I want to see different, it’s a lot less noise around peripheral issues,” Morgan says. In an interview, Morgan touched on goals and objectives for the coming year, and commented on rumors that he might be interested in running for mayor.
Redevelopment. In addition to a second meeting to take place on Thursday, July 17, between state and township officials on traffic circulation in the redevelopment area, residents can also expect to see more discussion of the financial element, an important topic for Morgan, to take shape during the council’s next public meeting on Monday, July 21, he says.
The redevelopment finance committee has already suggested the best way to fund redevelopment is through tax increment financing, which allows for the financing of infrastructure and amenities while limiting risk to the Township and offering the potential to pay for related costs such as additional police, fire, and educational expenses. TIF features the issuance of bonds to private and institutional investors that will finance redevelopment. In the worst-case scenario that the bonds cannot be repaid due to a short-fall in TIF revenues, the investors will not be permitted to look to West Windsor taxpayers for repayment, but the investors will fully bear the risk of loss if TIF revenues are insufficient to repay the bonds.
During the July 21 meeting, the members of the redevelopment finance committee will discuss the retention of an investment banker. “To me, that’s a big deal. An investment banker is the critical element in selling the bonds that will finance parking garages and other amenities,” Morgan says. “The investment banker’s success or not will be highly dependent upon how the redevelopment plan is written.”
Having an investment banker at the table immediately would be instrumental in this success because it “really would be unfortunate to write a plan and present it to an investment banking firm who would say, ‘You’ve got to go back to the drawing board,’” Morgan said.
Morgan points to community unrest a year ago in response to Hillier presentations, when there were “cynical reactions to the assumptions on economics and disbelief the economics were as good as being assumed,” Morgan says. “An investment banking firm resolves that problem,” because it is not going to put its efforts into something it believes won’t work, said Morgan.
“Their incentives are to make sure the bonds can be sold,” he explained. “They’re going to be doing all of that economic modeling. We don’t have to worry about it if the investment banking firm says it’s a green light, and they can settle the bonds, and it’s not West Windsor at risk.”
The redevelopment finance committee has already held discussions with an investment banking firm — Stone and Youngberg of San Francisco — said Morgan. Morgan said that according to the finance committee, the firm is one of the largest players in the bond financing industry in the nation. From January, 2002, to December, 2006, the firm claims it has done $7 billion on 415 transactions.
The biggest issue, says Morgan — who is a consultant on finance and employee benefits using life insurance structures — is to ensure the amount of bonds the market will support will generate the kind of cash needed to do what West Windsor wants. If this isn’t the case, “then, and only then, we will have to have a conversation about alternatives.”
Also with regard to redevelopment, Morgan says he wants to see the redevelopment attorney issue settled. Council and the mayor have disagreed over how to go about hiring such an attorney in the past year, and Morgan says he does not know how to settle it “without the mayor stepping up to conversation of what will work for both council and the mayor.” Still, he says, there is no crisis around the redevelopment attorney at the moment, and when it comes time to appoint someone to the position, that’s when the council will deal with the issue. “Until then, we’ve got so much on our plate, there is no appetite to deal with something that is not urgent,” Morgan says.
As township consultants work on the redevelopment plan, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of August, Morgan says he just wants to move forward with redevelopment as best as he can. “We’re incapable of moving forward without the mayor and administration facilitating the executive part of the roles,” he says. “There are three legs to the stool. There’s the NJ Transit and Department of Transportation, there’s the West Windsor administration, and there’s the West Windsor Council. All three legs have to stand, and I’m only the chair of one of the three legs.”
Morgan says there are never any guarantees, but “we’re all working toward a common goal of creating a vibrant place we will all love.”
Openness. While Morgan wants to ensure meetings run more efficiently, he says a goal for the coming year is also to keep the meetings “open, businesslike, and to demonstrate that the people who are complaining that we’re not being open simply are mistaken,” Morgan says. Morgan has already publicly directed residents to his blog and website, which also contains a poll for residents regarding redevelopment — www.charlescmorgan.com, which links to his blog, at https://charlie-charlesmorgan.blogspot.com.
While Morgan says he very much values constructive criticism, and encourages residents to “keep it coming,” he does feel that “those folks who throw stones without offering constructive solutions are not beneficial to the process. I would just ask them to think about what they’re saying and offer ideas, rather than simply criticisms. I don’t mind the criticism as long as it is constructive and leads to better management of what we’re trying to do.”
Morgan referred to a comment on his blog as an example of constructive criticism. Mike Ranallo, a Trenton resident who owns property in West Windsor, submitted a comment regarding council’s original elimination of the videotaping of public comment in the beginning of business meetings. The suggestion was to allow public comment without taping for residents who do not want to be on television, and turn on the television for those who do not mind it, he said. The council later reinstated the practice of videotaping that segment of the meeting.
Reimbursement Issue. The end of this past council year was marked by controversy over council’s proposed salary increase and reimbursement issue. Council members, with the exception of Linda Geevers, had proposed a 50 percent increase in their salaries to $7,”500, a measure that drew crowds of residents opposed to the idea to council meeting to voice their concerns. Council members said the raise was simply to offset the costs associated with carrying out the everyday functions of their jobs. The measure was ultimately vetoed by Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh. In response, council proposed a flat monthly reimbursement policy, similar to the mayor’s, which also drew public ire before the whole issue was dropped by council.
The issue resurfaced last month when it came time to approve Morgan’s reimbursement voucher for a lunch with Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner in December, and Geevers adamantly opposed the bill’s approval. The issue drew controversy over what should count as a valid reimbursement and whether a limit should be placed on the amount a governmental official can be reimbursed for a meal.
Both Morgan and Geevers, who drafted a policy ordinance of her own, have called for a clear reimbursement policy. Morgan says he is working on his own draft that he will offer to council for review and discussion soon, perhaps as early as the council’s next meeting on July 21, he says. “We clearly need a policy that resolves the politics and addresses issues,” he said. “We should have a dollar limit on how much people can be reimbursed. We need an aggregate limit, and the number in my head is $55 for three meals a day.”
Morgan for Mayor? With the mayoral election about 10 months away — in May, 2009 — rumors around the township have been suggesting Morgan will run for the top spot.
Morgan’s response: “I don’t know if I’m going to run for mayor. I have three more years on council. My plans are to finish out my term. If I run for mayor, it will only be if people ask me to and I feel that it is something that will have value.”
Upcoming Council Issues. During the July 7 meeting, Morgan encouraged his colleagues to submit issues for the next agenda session on Monday, July 21. Geevers has already said she believes the Council on Affordable Housing regulations should be a topic of discussion. Anklowitz has said he believes the topic of a referendum question on redevelopment — which has been debated among council members and township officials as too broad an issue for such a ballot question — should at least be discussed at the next meeting.
