Robbinsville Township Mayor Dave Fried recently presided over his eighth Pay it Forward/State of the Township event.
As part of his annual address, the mayor and his team raised more than $65,000—a new record for the event—to help the McLaughlin Family of Robbinsville—Karen, Bruce, Nico and Mikayla.
Nico has waged a life-long battle with Evans Syndrome, which afflicts less than 1,000 people in the world. Evans syndrome is an extremely rare blood and auto-immune disease in which the body’s immune system produces antibodies that mistakenly destroy red blood cells, platelets and sometimes certain white blood cells known as neutrophils.
Recently Mikayla, who suffers from Crohn’s/colitis, had a colon resection. Even more recently, it was learned that Bruce needs a liver transplant. The family’s car also has been rendered inoperable.
Since debuting the Pay it Forward initiative, Robbinsville has raised over $450,000 for individuals and organizations in need.
Fried honored the McLaughlin Family and also delivered his State of the Township Speech at The Stone Terrace by John Henry’s in Hamilton.
During the speech, Fried also highlighted his plan to have the township purchase the former Investors Bank building as a new municipal building.
The text of his address, which has been edited for space, appears below.
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Tonight, we are Paying it Forward to the McLaughlin’s. This wonderful family has been on our radar for many years, but Nico’s incredible strength and his will to live a full and happy life gave us confidence that we could wait a little longer. Well, that time is now. Karen was actually so good. I’m actually thinking about having her do my speech for me next year.
First, I’d like to thank all our sponsors and donors and to our Pay it Forward coordinator Jody Stephens, who helped us raise over $65,000.
When we started Pay It Forward back in 2015, the idea was to get a wheelchair accessible van for the Shepard family. Their son Trey, was part of a contest for a van. So we all stepped up, including many of you who are here tonight, and we made it happen.
Nine years later, thanks to Phil Mastellone, John Crooks and the team at Robbinsville Dodge Jeep on Route 130, we’ve come full circle.
Phil not only loaned the McLaughlin’s a vehicle for over a month free of charge when their family SUV died, but they stepped up with the help of all of your donations to provide Karen, Bruce, Nico and Mikayla with a brand new Plymouth Voyager.
I’d also like to thank Jeannine Cimino (executive VP and chief retail officer for William Penn Bank, Hamilton). Janine has been a fixture to our Pay It Forward events since day one. There’s really no one else we’ve ever considered as our emcee. Year after year, she knocks it out of the park with her wit and charm.
She’s been an amazing advocate for both the business community and for our expanded community. No one really ever considers having a charitable event in Mercer County without including Jeannine. So to her dedication to Mercer County and the Robbinsville, we are giving her our first ever Pay it Forward award tonight and just want to thank her for everything she done.
When Janine did this the first year, we did not know how this is going to work out, and there’s a whole bunch of funny stories that we could tell about how we actually pulled the first night together. But when it ended, Janine called me the next day and she’s like, “I have no idea what you’re going to do next year, but we’re in.”
I’d also like to thank my wife, Kitt, and my kids Brett and my new college graduate, Ashley, for all of their love and support. You know, there’s a saying that behind every successful man, there is an amazing woman who manages to keep it all together. Believe me when I tell you, I am no exception. So thank you, sweetheart.
I’d like to thank the Robbinsville School District and the Board of Education for being here and also their parts from the partnership.
The district is also navigating some difficult waters right now, and although we are two separate forms of government with two entirely different budgets, we do work together when we can to share costs and to help make the learning experience for our students better.
The council has our budget and we were able to increase our contribution to the cost of the school resource officers by $152,000.
I’d also like to thank our (state) legislators. Senator Linda Greenstein is here with us tonight. Also assemblymen Wayne DeAngelo and Dan Benson, who had a family emergency. I want to thank them for everything they do and also their efforts in trying to help our schools get their fair share of state aid.
I’d also like to recognize Wayne DeAngelo for his efforts to make our electric grid safer. This quiet work is done behind the scenes without much fanfare. But for those of you who have lived in Robbinsville through the blackouts and have noticed that they’ve been happening less and less, Wayne is one of the big reasons why, and I want to thank you for that.
Almost every year I’ve had the rare pleasure of doing something no other town in New Jersey could claim: Stand up here and announce nearly a decade of either flat or reduced municipal taxes. Those were the good times.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it—this year’s going to sting a bit. The 3.7-cent increase, which amounts to an average of $144 per household, did not come because we failed to plan or we failed to act. Quite the contrary.
We took some incredible measures and many sacrifices were made, but ultimately the worst inflation battle since the ‘70s led to runaway costs for nearly everything. For us, trash, pension payments, health insurance and a healthy down payment on our future police and court building were the biggest drivers.
No one hates raising taxes more than me, but know this—Robbinsville taxpayers are still getting a tremendous value for their money. The quality of our services has not—and will not—suffer.
Home values are still up, as are sales of existing homes and there aren’t many available. In fact, home values are increasing faster than every other town in Mercer County except for Princeton.
The investments we want to make this year will have a significant impact on our future budgets.
One of those investments may be outside the box, but that’s what we do when things get a little bit dicey. Right next door to our municipal building is the building formerly occupied by Roma and then Investors Bank. Right now, those 47,000 square feet are appraised at $9.3 million, and it’s vacant.
We’d like to purchase that building and move all of our operations—with the exception of the Department of Public Works, fire and the senior center—under one roof. I know you must be thinking right now, “This guy just told us he wants to raise taxes and now he wants to buy a building?”
The short answer is yes. The long answer is we built our existing municipal building in 2015 because it was absolutely the right thing to do at the time. If there’s one common theme of our daily operations since I’ve been mayor is we believe in doing what’s appropriate in the climate we’re operating in, while always casting an eye toward the future.
We love our municipal building. It has been a one stop shop for residents and professionals. We certainly don’t have to move next door, but there may be too much value there to ignore.
When all is said and done, this will turn out to be tax savings. For the past three years, we have been looking for a suitable location and a suitable developer to build our new police station and court in partnership with Hightstown Borough.
I’d also like to thank the mayor of Hightstown, Susan Bluth, who happens to be with us tonight. Together, we’ve been able to save our taxpayers money and provide many interlocal services, including EMS.
We have been sharing our police station and court since Hurricane Irene in 2011. Since COVID, the costs to complete the court police station have exploded to the tune of $14 million. And that’s without cost overruns and inflation by the time we get shovels into the ground.
As we were contemplating our next move, we looked out the eastern window of our existing building and saw a possible solution. Without getting too deep into the weeds when it comes to the math, we think we can sell our existing municipal building, then the land where our existing police and court facilities are on Route 130.
So instead of paying $14 million to build a new building, we can possibly move most of our daily operations next door for the appraised value of $9.3 million or $4.7 million in savings. It’s ambitious, but it also makes sense, both logistically and from a business and budgetary standpoint.
As I said earlier, we like to make decisions based on what makes sense at the time, and this seems to make the most sense. Achieving goals like this vision that I just laid out cannot be achieved without decades of trust from our residents. They allow us to take chances that others might be unwilling to take.
They also cannot be accomplished without the incredible support of my staff, led by our business administrator, Joy Tozzi, and our town council—President Debbie Blakeley, Vice President Mike Todd, Mike Cipriano, Chris Ciaccio and Ron Witt.
The council was a huge part of that confidence and trust, and I’d like to pause here and recognize someone who has decided not to run again.
Councilman Witt is an amazing asset to our community. He is the reason we take on some of our more ambitious building projects. He’s not only a great friend to me on council, but also personally. They say you cannot choose your family. But if I could, I would choose him. Ron, thank you for your service and dedication to Robbinsville.
This council wants what we all want. For our government to be transparent and to make decisions based on what’s best for the entire town. Remember, this is your government, your community, your schools. Never be afraid to make your voice heard. As far as the township, keep writing us. It really does make a difference.
Residents often come up with ideas that we never thought of. As elected officials, we’re constantly learning from you as well. The day that we stop listening to each other, above all the rhetoric and noise, is the day we start moving forward together as a community.
I’d like to thank all of our generous sponsors led by our corporate partners, Route 130 Dodge Jeep, William Penn Bank and their CEO Ken Stephon, Hexa Builders, Legacy Treatment Services, BAPS Charities, and also Mr. Adam Elias.
My friend Adam is running for assembly. He’s an attorney by day and has been opening coffee shops by night. He is deeply involved in our community, and in every way I cannot thank him enough for stepping forward and being one of our lead sponsors tonight.
Thanks to tonight’s very special Pay it Forward event, we are fast approaching half a million dollars raised for our friends, neighbors and organizations in need.
I’d also like to recognize my dear friend Roy Leitstein, CEO of Legacy Treatment Services. Roy has been part of Pay it Forward from the beginning. He is one of the reasons our very first event was a success, and he never fails to step up for those in need.
In fact, I will digress for a moment. When we first needed to get a van, I called Roy and I said, I need a handicapped van.
He said “Great when do you need it?”.
I said, “Next week.”
He’s like, “You know, they take six months, right?”
I’m like, “No.”
It just so happens the Roy was able to step forward and help us. So I always appreciate his hard work. He’s always one of my first phone calls.
As I mentioned at the outset, our department heads have made incredible sacrifices across the board while never compromising the services that they provide to our constituents.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on open space. However, no town in Mercer County has preserved more acres over the past 18 years than Robbinsville, and although though the community voted down raising our open space tax last November, our clerk’s office has the required signatures to put it back on the ballot on Nov. 7.
That decision will be up to the council, but I would be remiss not to thank the county for their help in our open space process. Starting with our county executive Brian Hughes, and our county commissioners, two of whom are here tonight. John Cimino, the least famous of the dynamic duo, is joined by Nina Melker, who has become well-known for her own charity work throughout Mercer County.
I think we can agree one of the biggest stories of the past year has to be one of the election challenges we had here in Robbinsville. Ballots from one of our districts were lost.
Those are the board’s (Mercer County Board of Elections) words, not mine. And we suffered some with faulty machines for the second year in a row. County Clerk Paula Covello is also with us, and I want to thank her for being willing to put money from her budget into purchasing new voting machines for all of Mercer County. I really do think this will go a long way to fix what was broken. So thank you and thank you for being here tonight.
And thanks for our residents for being outspoken and determined to get answers from elected officials. One of the absolute pillars of the five tenets that we talk about every year is keeping our residents safe, and none do it any better than our Robbinsville Police Department, led by Chief Mike Polaski.
Truth be told, I could stand up here and give awards to these guys all night. But when you talk about having a deep roster of capable men and women, Lt. Tom Egan stands out as one of our true anchors of our police team.
He is our Swiss Army knife. He can do it all. This year, Lieutenant Egan and a handful of his brother and sister officers, along with our affordable housing guru, Gail Pfister, worked day in and day out to find shelter for a woman who was left homeless after years of domestic abuse.
Policing in America has never been tougher. The environment our officers work in today has never been more challenging. Our first responders put themselves in harm’s way every day, and the current climate out there is not their fault.
It is our responsibility as elected officials to make sure that they have the best training and the best possible equipment to make sure there are zero compromises in the hiring of people so that we have the best outcomes each and every day. We need to hold ourselves accountable and salute the brave men and women who choose to serve and protect us each and every day.
On April 22, we were reminded just how dangerous policing can be. When Ptl. Connor Boyle was struck head on by a reckless driver on Route 130. Upon watching the video close to 50 times, how Officer Boyle survived that crash with relatively minor injuries, only God knows.
Ironically, it was Conner’s last shift before being assigned to Pond Road (Middle School) as a school resource officer. Safe to say that Saturday shift will be one he will never forget.
Because of Ptl. Boyle’s close call, awareness was raised for the PBA Survivor Fund. This nonprofit is dedicated to providing survivor benefits to the families of PBA members, some of whom have made the ultimate sacrifice. Thanks to the CARE program and your generosity, tonight, we are donating $5,000 to the Survivor Fund in Connor’s name.
We have another individual here tonight that I’d like to recognize. Dave Doran has been a fixture in Robbinsville for decades. He has given of himself to numerous causes and causes and was the driving force of many Irish parades, both here and our neighboring Hamilton.
Dave is currently fighting ALS, and the costs of that, even after insurance, are enormous (Sadly, Doran passed away on June 11, 2023, following the mayor’s speech). Thanks to your incredible generosity over the years, we’ve raised enough money to aid the Doran family with a $5,000 check to help with some of their many expenses.
And there’s something else. We do not name things lightly after people here in Robbinsville. We’ve only done it once in all my years with the Vince Calcagno Senior Center. But tonight, it’s my honor and privilege to announce that we have officially renamed our recreation building in Miry Run as the Doran Center.
I’d also like to thank our fire department, led by Chief Dan Schaffener and his leadership team, along with our EMS workers who are out there 24 seven, keeping our community safe.
In closing, I’d also like to take a moment to thank all the mayors throughout Mercer County—in particular, Mayor Jeff Martin and East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov. Both of them have walked side by side with me these past few years, and I really appreciate their friendship and unwavering support. They exemplify service even after all of my years of serving as mayor, they continue to teach me.
Thank you to all the residents and local businesses for sticking with us, for trusting us, and most of all, for doing your part to keep Robbinsville special. We do have one last surprise gift for our guest of honor. As many of you may know, the McLaughlins established a Go Fund Me account totaling about $10,000 to help with the mounting costs and also to help preserve their home.
So tonight, in addition to the van, we are working with the family’s mortgage lender, and we are going to present them with another check of $10,000 to get them current. This is truly one of my favorite events of the year, and I really could not do it without each and every one of you. I want to thank you so much for making this possible and for also making people’s dreams possible and when you can, pay it forward.
Robbinsville Township is moving into the former Investors Bank building. The Town Center-based office and retail building was constructed in 2005 and has been occupied by Investors Bank (and its predecessor, Roma Bank). The bank sold the building in 2021 to Realty Management Systems for $20 million in a leaseback deal. Investors Bank subsequently vacated the building after being purchased by Citizens Financial Group in 2022.,
