All together now? Morristown council takes Pledge in person…as home viewers are left in the dark

morristown town hall file photo
Morristown town hall. Photo by Dan Beards
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The little things don’t seem so little after nearly two years in a pandemic. Take the Pledge of Allegiance, for instance.

“I’d just like to say that that was a lot more enjoyable to actually stand up and say it together to the flag, as opposed to saying it from a digital screen,” Morristown Council President Stefan Armington said Tuesday, at the council’s first in-person meeting since March 10, 2020.

It also was the governing body’s first hybrid session.

Sort of.

Despite at least two months of planning by town officials, and a reminder from Mayor Tim Dougherty of the need for continued caution amidst rising COVID-19 infections, the livestream from town hall produced no video for residents attempting to watch from the safety of their homes. The audio was garbled at times, too.

Guess you can’t take Zoom for granted anymore, either.

“So please excuse or have patience with us, as we try to figure out the technical aspects of it,” Armington told virtual spectators after a 10-minute late start. “I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.”

The council expressed interest in hybrid options back in the spring. Town Administrator Jillian Barrick announced plans for such a system in late September. In early November, she said the town’s video contractor had conducted a successful test.

Barrick did not explain what went wrong Tuesday, but said video from the hour-long meeting will be posted on the town website.

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY TEST PATTERN? This is all viewers saw from the Morristown council’s first hybrid meeting, Nov. 30, 2021. Screenshot by Kevin Coughlin

Technology aside, the administrator received council kudos for securing more than $1 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, the coronavirus relief bill signed by President Biden in March.

The grant can be used for public health programs, among other things, and will be added as revenue in next year’s municipal budget, Barrick told the council.

By a unanimous vote (minus absent Councilman Michael Elms), the council also approved a $750,000 expenditure, mostly a bond sale, towards a new ladder truck for the fire bureau.

A similar amount was approved in June. The administration had planned to spread the full $1.4 million cost over two years. But the vendor advised that such a delay could prove expensive because a “substantial” price increase is looming, Barrick said.

The fire bureau’s two ladder trucks need frequent repairs, forcing the town to rely on neighboring fire departments, Barrick said. Because new trucks are custom-built, it may take two years for delivery of this one, she said.

MINUTES, PILOTS AND RUGS

In other business, the council authorized creating the positions of public health officer (salary range $89,000-$120,000) and health educator ($40,000-$65,000).  The town had contracted with Morris County for those services in recent years.

The council also voted to halt town efforts to collect nearly $73,000 in property taxes from the owner of 74  37 apartments at Ford Avenue and Market Street. The billing was a mistake, Barrick said.

A 2012 2015 redevelopment agreement allowed Leona Morris Street Urban Renewal Associates LLC to make annual payments in lieu of taxes. Under such “PILOT” deals, property improvements are exempt from taxation. Morristown erroneously assessed improvements at $2.5 million and tried to tax them this year, according to the council resolution.

It’s customary for councils to approve minutes from their previous meeting. So Councilwoman Tawanna Cotten wanted to know why she and her colleagues were voting to accept records from April 12.

Town Clerk Margot Kaye, who compiles the minutes, said the meeting in question was a special hearing, the last of three involving the Iron Bar. “There was a lot of information to digest” and “a lot of internal situations in the office,” Kaye said, asserting she is striving to catch up.

As of Tuesday, no minutes had been posted from the last five council meetings, from Sept. 14 onward.

The Morristown Parking Authority is offering free weekend parking for the holidays at its Ann/Bank Street garage, the mayor reported, and Council Vice President Toshiba Foster said metered street parking will be free, too, from Dec. 10 through Christmas.

And…a proclamation by the mayor celebrated the centennial of the Wells Rug Service Inc.

Since moving from Boonton to Morristown in 1929, Dougherty said, the business at the bottom of Ann and Bank streets has survived a robbery, ownership changes, trucks crashing into its building…and a pandemic.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. PILOTs should not be granted to residential developments. Unless they are planning to discriminate against families with children, there is no way to determine how many children will be attending the public schools while the rest of the residents are picking up the cost of educating those children. In 2018, the Morris School District spent $23,800 per child (likely over $25K now). Over a K thru 12 school career, that’s >$300k per child. No one is making up for that loss in school funding. Developers are lined up around the block to build projects in Morristown, so PILOTs should be used sparingly, if at all, and only for commercial developments. The town doesn’t care because they are still getting their $$.

  2. @ Cary – fair points but your comments read to me that you are against the PILOT programs that helped/is helping a lot of development get under way in town since nothing positive was mentioned about them. Also, I have not seen my taxes over the last 5 years increasing due to these programs, only a tremendous increase in the quality of the town.

    I myself am not sure why some of this PILOT money cant be directed toward the school system, either just as a small good faith measure by the town, or proportionate to the amount of residential aspect of the project.

  3. @Conner. Not sure how you interpreted i am antidevelopment from my statement. I think most of the projects developed in the last 20 years are good for residents and town. And some of the early ones certainly justified the PILOTs they received. My concern is the town rolls over for EVER PILOT request because, in reality, it doesn’t affect THEIR budget and tax increases, only the school district’s. I think there are projects now, due to the desirability of MoTown, that would still be built if we said ‘NO’ or said ‘OK but for 5 years, not 20’. The current project on Morris Ave is a great example. Developer proposed a good project with 25+ Apartments with potential school district kids and during questioning, said they would not be asking for a PILOT. In the end, the Town granted them a 20 YEAR PILOT exemption from school tax payments. We’ll never know if the project would have still been built with no PILOT or a 5 year PILOT because the Town didn’t seem to negotiate very hard. Looking forward to your response.

  4. School districts do not lose any money when a PILOT is approved. The school budget gets approved and gets put into your taxes regardless of PILOT projects. What changes is the allocation of assessed value to the tax base because the PILOT is not counted in the cumulative tax assessment of the town.

    The other misconception is the subject property makes payments that are not less than the previous taxable amount. This means that the property must pay more than it was paying than before the PILOT was issued. The net here is that a PILOT property will pay equal or more than prior to a PILOT being issued.

  5. No it doesn’t Cary. It results in millions and millions more dollars for the town budget which have kept taxes from increasing here in town in the last decade, and allowed certain utilities to be upgraded alongside the development. Most of these PILOT programs make development possible, and the development in most cases does not add significant student counts to the school system. Not to mention the millions it adds to the local economy of small businesses.

    So tired of these comments just bashing development with no basis. Make a suggestion of what to do instead of just shouting a complaint. Isn’t the town a much much nicer place to live and work than it was 10-15 years ago??

  6. According a report of the NJ State Comptroller on the abuses arising from PILOTs and tax abatement programs, “In practice, there is no state oversight or monitoring of the granting of individual tax abatements in New Jersey … These circumstances have resulted in a lack of transparency and accountability regarding the awarding of abatements….” “For school districts, the impact is more direct. School districts often receive a large portion of traditional property tax collections” — in Morristown approximately 60%. “As a result, abatements have a large impact on school funding and the tax burden of other taxpayers in the municipality … When a property tax abatement occurs, the school district receives no portion of the new PILOT revenue and thus loses out on the new wealth of the municipality…” And in some cases, “The new development may also add new, unfunded service burdens on the schools. The cost of these burdens must either be absorbed by raising rates on other taxpayers or by paring back services.“

  7. Another PILOT. It would be interesting for someone to compile a list of all the PILOTs approved over the last 20 years in Morristown and quantify the lost revenue to the Morris School District. That lost revenue to the school district means higher property taxes for Motown residents.

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