Upset about your property taxes? Have a nagging code-related quality of life issue that you don’t feel has been addressed? Just have questions about municipal services?
If you fall into any of those categories, or have another ask of Middlesex Borough officials, you’ll have a two-hour opportunity to pose your questions directly next week.
Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk and the Borough Council, as well as municipal department heads, will hold a town hall from 7 to 9 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 29 at the Ronald S. Dobies municipal building.
“This is going to be an open forum meeting,” Mikolajczyk said. “Basically, I want to hear from everybody…what’s on your mind, what are you thinking.”
Middlesex Borough School Superintendent Dr. Roberta Freeman has been invited, according to Mikolajczyk. The 21st Legislative District team that represents Middlesex in Trenton – State Sen. Jon Bramnick and Assemblywomen Nancy Munoz and Michele Matsikoudis – also received an invite, the mayor said.
At the council’s Tuesday, Oct. 22 meeting, Mikolajczyk said Freeman had yet to respond to the invite. “I have not gotten an answer back from her, yes or no at this point. But the invite is there,” the mayor said.
Bramnick’s office notified the borough on Oct. 24 that the senator would not attend. By late week, borough officials were still waiting to hear from the 21st District assemblywomen.
Mikolajczyk said recently that the town hall is being held to get the “pulse” of constituents in advance of budget work in the early months of 2025. At this week’s council meeting, the mayor said he anticipates next year to be a difficult one budget-wise.
The council adopted municipal budgets in both 2023 and 2024 that increased municipal taxes by 7.5% each year. In neither year, did the mayor and council hold a town hall to gage public sentiment. The public hearing on the 2024 spending plan saw only one taxpayer ask questions.
Tax bills, however, were a source of concerns at an August council meeting. Those bills came out at roughly the same time that some property owners received inspection notices due to a new reassessment program.
Other potential town hall topics are noise and odor problems experienced by homeowners near the Baekeland Avenue industrial zone, and rat infestations.
Descriptions of late-night noise from one or more industrial zone businesses have been posted recently on social media. The council heard another in person on Oct. 22.
“It sounds as if a dump truck is dropping an entire load of pipe from the second floor onto the cement slab,” Fairview Avenue resident Kevin Redzinski told the governing body. “It really is, at points, almost deafening.”
A potential solution, according to officials, could be to have a municipal staff member licensed in noise control enforcement. That would allow for more rapid response to complaints than waiting for a county health department official.
The rat infestations might be due neighbors having collections of garbage or construction debris in their yards, according to the mayor. “Around this time of year, they’re looking for food, and they’re looking for a place to shelter up,” Mikolajczyk said.
The municipality will not be “peeking over a fence to see if there’s anything back there,” he said. If property owners, however, report a suspected nearby rat source, the borough will investigate.
“We want to try and keep this in check,” Mikolajczyk said. Those who look the other way in the interest of being a “good neighbor,” he said, can “create a lot of problems for a lot of other people.”
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