Taxes

The Township Council gave the green light March 7 to a sidewalk program that will affect about 150 property owners around Franklin Middle School. The council met in a special session to consider the project, during which a number of area residents spoke in favor of or against the plan.

Update: The budget presentation meeting has been rescheduled for 7:45 p.m. March 21 in the FHS media center.  

The $59.3 million budget introduced Feb. 28 by the Township Council carries something that hasn’t been seen in quite a while: a decrease in the local portion of the property tax rate. The decrease is slight and varies depending upon whether a property has been reassessed in the last year, but it’s a decrease, nonetheless.

Work on the Route 518 bridge is expected to resume this week, nearly two weeks after contractors found traces of a possible carcinogen in the ground around the construction area. Workers found creosote, a wood preservation chemical, in the ground and water near the bridge earlier this month. Work was immediately stopped so that an environmental plan could be created …

Technology, like time, waits for no one. Township police found that out recently when the decision was made to roll out the body worn camera program, a pilot program using cameras that had been purchased in 2015 through a grant from the state Attorney General.

Township officials anticipate the 2017 budget will allow them to do a little more with a little less. As in, a little more in services with a little less spending.

The Township Council Feb. 14 introduced ordinances earmarking more than $650,000 to purchase two pieces of property. The ordinances will have a public hearing and final adoption vote at the council’s Feb. 28 meeting.

The Township Council held the first of two scheduled budget hearings on Feb. 13, with a handful of department heads on hand to make the case for their budget requests. The second budget hearing is slated for Feb. 21, and the council is expected to introduce the 2017 budget later in the month.

Update: Ordinances approving the purchase and allocating the money for the purchase were approved on final reading Feb. 14 by the Township Council. Original Story: The township will pay about $14 million to buy the Consolata Missionaries property on Route 27.

A resolution calling for a temporary moratorium on expanding existing or creating new charter schools in Somerset and Middlesex counties sparked a heated debate at the Jan. 26 Board of Education meeting. The measure was supported by all board members in attendance, save Pat Stanley, who mounted a spirited argument against it.