DEAR LABOR LEADERS
Read below and learn about the steps we have taken to move the township forward and the resistance that has been met in the progress towards rebuilding.
In 2017,
Organized Labor supported my campaign for Mayor as well as fellow At-Large candidates for Hillside, New Jersey. As I walked the entire township, I asked union members to walk with me and support a platform to represent working families and expand job growth and opportunities through economic development. Unfortunately, the council members I ran with and the Democratic Chairman who aggressively solicited labor monies by way of my placement on the ticket, decided to put their self-serving agendas above what we promised the people of Hillside.
After thirty (30) years of little to no development
and throughout my entire tenure as Mayor, the Council wrote economic development out of the budget. Despite my administration’s acquiring an A+ bond rating and having a portion of the community deemed an opportunity zone, whereby we may finally be able to knock down and build on the old Bristol Myers Squibb headquarters, the obstacles they vehemently put in place prohibit the availability of jobs specifically geared towards union labor.
The township is only 2.7 square miles
and is heavily dependent on property owners who provide approximately 90% of our revenue due to the lack of the aforementioned development. Without development and efforts to attaining/attracting small businesses, massive tax hikes and the associated costs of the township’s function will be crushing to a community of working families where the average income for a family of four (4) is $56,000.
Over the last ten (10) years, Council kept municipal taxes at 0% and proceeded to lower them for the past 6 years without a capital plan and no plan to attract development and businesses to compensate for the revenue loss. The township remains at more than a 12.5% deficit and we have collective bargaining agreements that are more than 7 years expired with no remedy for any cost of living increases.
The Council’s response to this harrowing circumstance is to publicly attack the township’s CFO, terminate the township attorney and bludgeon the surplus to less than $800,000. All of the reasons labor encouraged me to run for office are being undermined at every turn. As of today, the Council refuses to pass a temporary budget so that we can pay bills generated during the start of 2020, they have added to the stress of removing economic development, by targeting small businesses and removing UEZ from the budget, which also could remove the township’s designation as an opportunity zone, which directly affects attraction from investors and developers, which interferes with the potential for union jobs.
Rather than propose Project Labor Agreements into our ordinances of which I provided a draft at the beginning of my term, Council has done nothing but pass ordinances to attack the administration and my staff. Council continues to present obstacles to my ability to protect working families, attract development and job growth. Rather than support my efforts to bring Hillside into the 21st century, which includes our intent to apply for State funding and build a brand new 21st Century State-of-the-Art veterans’ memorial library, the Hillside Democratic Chairman and Council attacked the idea and ran an entire campaign the project during the summer of 2019!
Moreover, democratic committee members and the citizens they have influenced proceeded to attack the Bay Crane company and allege that my union affiliation compromised my ability to be the Mayor and in effect run them out of town. Moreover, Democratic committee members have gone as far to attack my children, my husband and just recently suggest that Local 68 terminate me from my full-time position.
On Friday, January 24, 2020,
I held a meeting with small businesses (including Bay Crane) throughout town and advised them of the Council’s plan to destroy our UEZ status. The State of New Jersey would love nothing more than to charge these businesses full tax credit, but again, this action works against working families and is an action that we will be unable to reverse if they are successful. They were quick to ask for money from organized labor, but are content attacking me with a spirit that is anti-worker, anti-workers’ rights, anti-fair wage, anti-union and anti-skilled labor. Neighboring communities have benefitted from job creation and economic development, why does my community have to suffer because the leadership within the Democratic Party is anti-labor?
As your sister in the labor movement, I am asking for your assistance in my fight as an elected official who is trying to do the right thing; who is trying to explore, expand and execute the job organized labor asked me to so that working families have a future. We cannot in good faith ask our members to run for office and then leave them without support and guidance when they only seek to keep their campaign promises.