‘We like our town…’

Middlesex Borough residents are generally satisfied with municipal services and operations but would like to see better public communication and restraint on tax increases.

Those were the takeaways from a town hall meeting attended by about 35 residents at the Ronald S. Dobies municipal building on Tuesday, Oct. 29. The session was convened by Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk. Borough Council members and about a dozen municipal department heads attended.

“I’m glad you guys were here to hear this,” Mikolajczyk told department heads at the conclusion of the town hall. “Now you know this is what (residents) think.”

Mikolajczyk said he and council members will talk about their constituents’ town hall comments and “how to get there” during a workshop session at a future meeting.

The mayor conducted a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of municipal operations during the town hall, asking attendees to identify items in each category. Mikolajczyk said the session was spurred, in part, by comments he’d heard from some taxpayers that they were not asked for input prior to the 2024 budget adoption.

Audience members saw local volunteerism, the Department of Public Works and Recreation Department, police efforts and accessibility, and the work of department heads as borough strengths.

“They’re doing their job,” Mikolajczyk said of municipal staff. “They’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

One audience member credited the mayor and council for stepping in to deal with the severe erosion that threatened a Heather Lane home when state government did not. “We’ve fallen on deaf ears for a lot of these things,” Mikolajczyk said of state officials. “We have to help ourselves.”

Town hall attendees also identified municipal government weaknesses. The work of volunteers had been cited as a strength, but the ongoing need to find them was also pegged as a weakness.

Audience members said code enforcement and municipal government’s communications with its constituents could be better.  The condition of Lake Creighton, ongoing safety issues at the Cedar Avenue rail crossing, and need for economic development are also Middlesex Borough weaknesses.

Opportunities exist to improve municipal parks, initiate redevelopment and entice more volunteers, particularly younger adults, according to Mikolajczyk. 

Many parents in their 30’s and 40’s, the mayor noted, are working two jobs and have little time to volunteer. To do so, he said, might involve some type of financial incentive. “People don’t like to hear that,” said Mikolajczyk, “but that’s the reality.”

The mayor acknowledged that the municipality “could do a better job” of communications with its residents.

Escalating taxes, flooding, noise issues, the struggle to find volunteers, vehicular traffic and speeding on local streets were viewed as threats to the borough’s quality of life.

Audience members also had suggestions for municipal departments. Among them was that more active code enforcement is needed on commercial and industrial properties. 

Better response to constituents was called for through the municipal phone and email systems. 

Mikolajczyk offered several personal takeaways from the evening’s discussion. He advocated investigating at least modest redevelopment efforts, maximizing municipal assets and focusing on the ongoing need for volunteers.

“If they go away,” he said of the volunteer fire companies and rescue squad, “we’re going to pay and that’s a problem.”

“We like our small town,” the mayor said of the evening’s overriding theme, “but how do we afford our small town?”

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