WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=cseC_hBTm14

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: cseC_hBTm14):
- 00:00:00: Introduction and Gratitude to Supporters for Debate
- 00:01:51: Funding Lead Service Line Replacement Without Burdening Ratepayers
- 00:04:49: Managing Municipal Budget to Avoid Significant Tax Increases
- 00:07:59: Effectiveness of Pilot Agreements for Financial Stability
- 00:11:44: Current Initiatives for Small Business Support and Measurement
- 00:15:31: Balancing Development with Preserving Township Identity
- 00:19:01: Addressing Infrastructure Strain Caused by Overdevelopment
- 00:22:34: Scholarship Opportunities for Belleville High School Seniors
- 00:25:02: Lowering the Overall Cost of Living for Families
- 00:28:17: Prioritizing Infrastructure, Safety, and Recreation Funding
- 00:32:02: Forward-Thinking Program To Ensure Future Generations Return
- 00:36:21: Engaging Community in Decision-Making and Policy Development
- 00:39:52: Creating Programming and Spaces for High School Students
- 00:43:36: Implementing Cultural Events to Create Stronger Community
- 00:47:08: Improving Communication and Accountability for Residents
- 00:50:49: Expanding Translation Services for Foreign Born Population
- 00:54:36: Collaborating With Belleville Public Schools and Addressing Funding
- 00:58:39: Expanding Community Policing Efforts in Belleville Police
- 01:02:08: Attracting Experience-Based Businesses and Keeping Spending Local
- 01:06:16: Top Priority To Accomplish In Office and Achievement
- 01:09:47: Supporting Veterans In Township Of Belleville
- 01:13:16: Closing Thank You


Part: 1

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Good morning and welcome to the 2026 Belleville Mayoral Debate. My name is Milan Marsh and I'm honored to serve as your student moderator for this debate. As a junior at Belleville High School and a proud member of both the Academy of Law and Legal Studies, our mock trial

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team, I've had the privilege of studying civil engagement, constitutional principles, and the art of persuasive argumentation. I would like to take a minute to thank the individuals who made this event possible. Thank you to Mayor Michael Melhem, Councilman Frank Vez,

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Superintendent Eric Alfonso, High School Principal Mr. Rhodess, Mr. Sheridan, and Miss Chevotti for their unwavering support of our Academy of Law and Legal Studies, and for believing in the power of civic participation among our student leaders. Today's debate will represent the very

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heart of what we've learned, that thoughtful dialogue and respectful discourse are the foundations of a healthy democracy. This event brings together our community's most dedicated citizens and candidates who care deeply about

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Belleville's future. Whether you're here to support a candidate, engage in important local issues, or simply witness democracy in action, we're grateful for your presence and participation. During this debate, you will hear from candidates who have different visions

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for our township. Our role is to ensure this conversation remains civil, substantive, and focused on issues that matter most to us all. Thank you for being here. Let's begin. >> Before we begin, I wish to note that I was not provided advanced notice of the

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questions being asked at today's debate. >> Before we begin, I wish to note that I was not provided advanced notice of the questions being asked during today's debate. >> Question one. Belleville is under a state mandate to replace all lead

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service lines by 2031. How will you fund the remaining work without passing the full financial burden on to local rateayers? That is a great question and first off I want to thank you all for having me today. Um I think this question goes uh

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to the overall theme of advocacy and partnership with our federal uh representatives. I can tell you as someone who's worked at a federal office for our late Congressman Bill Pascal, uh these kind of projects are so important to communities throughout New Jersey and

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throughout our country. And I would work as mayor alongside my colleagues on the council and our township professionals uh to work with uh the office of now uh Congresswoman and Ailia Mahia uh to ensure that we get the funding that we

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deserve to replace these lead lines. >> Uh that's a great question. So, um, what happened when I first took office, we were underwater with our water utility, about $1.5 million. That was back in 2018. We worked really hard to clean up our water utility to make sure that that

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was solvent going forward. After that, still my first time, we ended up what was called the the Norc lead line water crisis. And it was because of that that actually it's a federal mandate that we must replace all residential lead service lines. That comes at a cost of about $8,000 per person or per

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household, I should say. I am somebody that many, many years ago did that for my own house. So, I know firsthand the burden that that is on a taxpayer. Belva is like most municipalities whereby that burden used to fall to the residential homeowner. You buy a house, you decide

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whether or not you want to do that. Uh, however, the state and the feds got together and said that Belleville must replace. I want to quantify these costs though. It is an unfunded mandate at a cost of about 35 to40 million dollar. Our budget's around 90 million. So

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that's 50% the cost of our budget. We've been doing this slow and steady. So every single year we've been uh replacing certain amount of lead service lines. I will say that after that uh lead line water crisis started, I picked up the phone and called my counterpart

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in the city of Norc, Norc Mayor Raz Baraka, and I asked him that since he was replacing all of his lead service lines to the cost of about $150 million, by the way, that because of Silver Lake, an entire section of town is on uh

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Norc's water infrastructure, I actually got the city of Norc to replace every single residential lead service line in Silver Lake. That's about 800 homes. Since then, every single year, we've been slowly doing that. It's part of a $4 million plan that we budget for every

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single year. We've been adding $400 and500. I also worked with our then congressperson, now Governor Mikey Cheryl, to make sure she got us funding to the tune of a couple million dollars. So, it'll be slow and steady over the next four or five years. We're going to continue to put that money into our road

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program, which again annually is about $4 million a year. >> Question two. With the town facing financial uncertainty, what is your top priority for managing the municipal budget to avoid a significant tax increase for

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residents? >> Financial uncertainty is definitely in the minds of so many Beville residents and I think it's essential to understand that the budget uh is presented to the council by township professionals. uh it is not introduced first uh by any

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singular member of the council under a form of government and I would work alongside my council colleagues as well as the CFO, the township manager and other professionals to see uh where we can effectively uh save monies, cut costs and really ensure that we are not

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pushing a huge financial burden uh on taxpayers and to work to find new ratables especially uh businesses that can bring in important uh local economic growth and work to sustain uh really

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smart long-term financial decisions. >> That's a great question. So, the first thing I've been doing in the last six months as I educate voters is the fact to let them know that taxes, your residential property taxes are comprised of three different items. It's municipal, it's school, and it's county.

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Unfortunately, when you get your tax bill, it's got my name on it or it's got town hall's name on it. But we are about onethird of your property tax bill. That being said, we have done great things to make BEL more affordable. And I say that because in the last five years, in the

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last five years, the average municipal tax increase has only been $68. One year was 98, one year was 38, but the average tax increase has only been $68 over the last five years. And people say, well, how did you accomplish so much? Whether

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it was new fields, programs, facilities. We've done that because we really have managed our budget. I always say in my state of township speech that there are less employees in Belleville today than there were when I took office. That's virtually unheard of. Most of us know that government grows every single year.

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And the fact that I've been able to keep municipal employees at a rate of less than when I got there is a huge benefit to the taxpayer because as most of us know salaries, benefits, retirement costs, pension payments, all of that goes to the budget. So the fact that

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we've been able to do that is great. However, we really need to get the school district to make sure they get their budget in line because unfortunately over the last three years or so, prior administrations here at the school district hired 300 more employees. Well, those 300 more

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employees over the last three years really do add to the tax burden. Therefore, when you get your tax bill, people don't traditionally believe when I tell them that the average tax increase over the last five years has only been $68. They don't believe it. But I like to bring facts and I like to

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bring receipts. So right on my website at melhamforbelville.com, you can see a certified letter from our CFO whereby he states that fact that the average municipal tax increase has only been $68 the last 5 years and we're going to work hard to make sure we keep a minimal tax increase every single year

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because we all know taxes do go up no matter what. Question three, how effective do you think Belleville's use of pilot agreements has been in supporting long-term financial stability for the town?

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Look, I've been very consistent that the oversaturation of pilot agreements has not been to the benefit of Belleville residents and families. I think you utilizing a pilot um here and there for a large substantial project that would greatly

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benefit the community is acceptable. Um I have voted on a few pilots and voted yes. Uh but the overwhelming majority I have voted no because I don't believe that we can just constantly and consistently put up more and more pilots without thinking about the effect on our

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school district, especially the funding formula. Because when you look at it, while pilots are technically factored in to a township's assessment when it is going for state aid, it does not factor in the amount of monies that the school district loses uh when it comes to

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pilots because pilots um developers through a pilot uh do not directly uh pay to the school district, do not directly fund the school district. And the cost for educating a child is about $22,000 a year, New Jersey. Um, so even

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if it's just a few students, that's, you know, over 40, that's over 60. You know, if there's 10 students per development, that's over $200,000. Uh, so I think we need to make uh more decisions that are not only thinking about the short-term effect, but the long-term effect on

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Belleville and our community and how that fits into our overall school district. Because any decisions we make at a township level will affect the school district. and we need to be cognizant and supportive of our schools because if our schools are in trouble, our town is in trouble.

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>> I think they've been wonderful. Uh they bring in a whole bunch of revenue. The question before this, if we're going chronologically, was about the municipal budget. I will say that the average municipal tax increase has only been $68 the last 5 years, mostly because of our use of pilots. And let me just explain

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this real quick. It's hard to do in less than two minutes, but the state allows municipalities to enter into pilot agreements. The mayor cannot approve that. The council cannot approve that. A certified municipal planner needs to come in, needs to have not one but two public hearings to make sure that this

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property qualifies. Most of the time, these properties are environmentally contaminated land. That environmental cleanup cost millions and millions of dollars, which is why you see that land stay vacant andow for many, many years, if not decades. Once we can incentivize a developer to clean that land and

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remediate the land, they then put a structure on that. That's the great part about that. These are not tax abatements. These are not tax reductions. Traditional tax payments are get removed. So for instance, a tax payment that you pay on your house, it's not that same formula. This is a a a

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business agreement that the municipality comes to with those properties whereby we get between 12 and 16% of the gross revenue. So if you have a building that's got say some of the first five buildings that I was not here for by the way that were approved before me but say there are 100 units or 150 units

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whatever those revenues are for that for that rent we get 12 to 15% of that. So for instance we had a project on Washington Avenue on the north border that was an empty contaminated land yielding about $10,000 a year to the municipalities. After that building

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leased up, the municipality gets $900,000 a year. And that's just one of those buildings. We've been using that additional revenue from those pilots. It's not taxes. It's additional revenue that we find to offset our budgets. So

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therefore, the pilots that we do have, many of which were approved before me, we are utilizing that revenue to stabilize our budget. And on top of that, the developers also pay into a special fund whereby they help low-income people fix their houses. That fund now has $4 million in it, which is

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not taxpayer money. >> Question four, what current initiatives are in place to support small businesses in Belleville, and how does the township measure their success? >> So, currently there are no substantial

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initiatives when it comes to supporting small businesses. I do believe that um everyone is of course well-intentioned, but I can tell you personally I have a buy Belleville initiative where I go throughout the township um and go to many different businesses um many mom

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and pops shops that have opened up and really want that extra attention, really want that extra support uh working alongside them and trying to promote them. Uh because so many businesses uh they get lost, you know, they need help, they need more attention. And it's so important as township officials

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especially uh to utilize our platforms to support local businesses because local businesses really are the heart of Belleville. Uh they really sustain us and they do so much for us to give back. It's so important to support them. So, I do believe uh going further that we need

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to support and create initiatives and work alongside more so with our partners um and private organizations like the suburban Essex Chamber of Commerce and others and work to see how we as a local government can do more um as a full uh council and a full municipality to

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support um our small businesses here in Belleville. So, we've been really revitalizing Washington Avenue. I want to start with our main business districts. Beville really has two business districts, one on Washington Avenue and one in the Silver Lake section. Unfortunately, Washington Avenue is a four-lane state

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highway, which makes it not so pleasing for walkability. We worked closely with the state that is a state highway, Route 7. We found when I got into office in 2018, a plan that Washington Avenue was going to get a $12 million upgrade. Unfortunately, that was in a box. We

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dusted off the dust on that box to make sure that we engaged the state. It has taken eight years, but if you're on Washington Avenue right now on the south side near the north border, you will see that there's ongoing construction. They've already been doing construction for a year, that construction will last

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two more years. It is now a $14 million investment that has things like not just a brand new street, which we're going from a four-lane highway to a three. We're including bike lanes, but it also has bumpouts at the corners. And what that does is it shrinks the distance before uh between that basically highway

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to make walkability much better. So you can cross the streets much easily and safer. Uh you could ride a bike in that area which is great. We are also working with businesses that either want trees or don't want trees. You'd be shocked to find out that most businesses don't want trees because they say it actually

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blocks their view from people in the car. That also being said, we've beautified the area. That's a really nice thing and initiative that I started. You will watch uh if you're there on Washington Avenue in the morning, you will watch DPW walking the streets cleaning up the litter.

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Residents love to see that stuff. If you're also on Washington Avenue, you'll see on the corners we have planter boxes. We're beautifying it. We're making it better. We're increasing the road. We're going from a four-lane highway down to a three, which will slow traffic. That means less accidents. It also means more people are seeing those

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businesses that are there. Last, I say this. If you're on Washington Avenue at nighttime and you see blinking neon lights, you're not in Belleville. You'll never see blinking neon lights in Belleville because we're focused on quality of life, litter collection, everything else, which I know will also support those local businesses.

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>> Question five. Many residents feel that nearly every open lot in Belleville, especially near Washington Avenue and the Silver Lake area, is being developed, changing the character of the township and even blocking views of the NYC skyline. How will you balance

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economic development with preserving Belleville's identity? And are you willing to limit overdevelopment to protect community and character and views? I do believe that when we're making decisions that are going to affect Belleville residents and families, we do

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have to think about how that's going to directly affect the communities and neighborhoods, especially in regards to development. I think it's incredibly important that before a building goes up that we work to ensure that that building is not going to in any way um

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harm or contribute to an already uh difficult parking situation u in a neighborhood. Uh specifically when you're talking about Washington Avenue, I think that Washington Avenue really is a place that you would develop, but I think we need to develop smartly, right? Because it's not just saying no to

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everything and it's not just saying yes to everything. We need a balanced approach to development. And I do believe that when you're looking at development that we really think about uh parking number one because you know I can tell you going around Belleville everyone's complaining about parking and

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we can't just build build add more more and put more cars in the streets when we don't have enough parking spots to begin with. So we do have to factor then that in incredibly when making these decisions and we do have to look at uh the overall character of the township. I do agree with that. Uh because look, at

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the end of the day, uh we do need smart development and we do need to think about how this is going to affect our community because there are so many bubble residents right now who could barely afford to live here already. And I think that we need to make decisions regarding development uh that benefits

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the community and helps the community uh not just trying to force out people and uh bring in a different set of people just to bring a different set. So I do believe in balancing development and I do believe in putting the character of the community and the benefit of the community first.

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>> We talk about development again. I think overdevelopment is a matter of opinion. Uh I do not think that Beville's currently overdeveloped. I will say that we have kept these buildings to the commercial corridors which is mostly Washington Avenue. And from the very top of some of these buildings you actually

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can see New York City whereby you weren't able to see before. But I will certainly push back on the fact that Belleville's overdeveloped her every single lot because my administration is the first administration probably 50 or 60 years to actually invest in open space. That's right. Nobody else has

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actually done that. We have actually spent money to acquire land to preserve it for open space. Anybody knows the great lawn which is on Franklin Avenue and uh Belleville Avenue that is not owned by that development that's there. A development that predates my tenure by the way. We bought that. We acquired

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that space for open space. Also, speaking about Washington Avenue, in order to try and help the business district, which was our previous question, if we're going in order, we actually did acquire lots there, not for development, but for parking lots. So, I definitely do push back on the fact that

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every single lot is being developed. They're not. We're looking at it very specifically to help the business district and to help our residents make sure that they have adequate parking. Some of those lots on Washington Avenue are going to parking. We're also making sure that we're preserving open space.

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>> Question six. As new housing and mixeduse developments continue to be built on previously open land, residents along busy roads like Franklin Avenue and Gerolman Street are experiencing increased traffic congestion and parking issues. What is your plan to address the

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strain on infrastructure caused by overdevelopment? And will you reconsider approving future projects until traffic and capacity concerns are resolved? >> I see this every day. I was just at a future five-story building that was

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approved at the corner of Greylock and Washington and that is going to be contributing a lot to the already difficult parking situation. uh when you factor in not just residents but their visitors and you factor in how there's not enough parking to begin with on these busy roadways, it's just going to

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be even more hectic on top of hectic. Uh so I think yes, we need to factor in um traffic. We need to factor in again uh the effect, the direct effect on the community and the quality of life. Um, and I think when it comes to development, we have to work with the

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planning board uh to look at our long-term plan for development and really where we want to go because I think everybody agrees what's going on right now is too quick uh too many buildings uh too fast all at once. And I think we need to put a pause and to really take an assessment and a traffic

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evaluation going further townwide before we make important development decisions. Uh so once again I will push back on your question because it's the second time we've mentioned overdevelopment. I think overdevelopment is definitely an opinion for certainly those residents that are on Gerolaman Street and

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Franklin Avenue first of all are nowhere near any of the buildings that are on Washington Avenue. Those buildings on Washington Avenue are mostly one uh one-bedroom and studio apartments. They are overparked which means that we provide more parking in those buildings than the state actually requires. we go

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above and beyond that whereby they also have visitor parking. So again, I don't believe that some of the traffic concerns that we're seeing have anything to do with the buildings just like I don't believe that any of the overcrowding of schools if that is happening are because of those buildings. But that being said, traffic

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is a concern everywhere, not just Belleville, New Jersey. We live in Northern New Jersey. Most households have one uh have more than one car in it. When I was growing up, I grew up on Drama Street. My mom is still there. It's a three uh a three unit three family house. Uh probably six or seven

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bedrooms across those three families. And uh initially we have one two cars. My father drove, my uncle drove downstairs. By the time I graduated college, we had seven cars in that house. It goes with the territory. More people are driving today than they did before. Cars are cheaper. Cars are more

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accessible. There's absolutely no more rush hour traffic where people are working from 9 to5. We do have a lot of people that are working from home, which means that they're not necessarily leaving some of those buildings to drive. So, yes, we do have a traffic problem. Uh, everybody's got a traffic problem. We did create a parking

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enforcement program, which is good because that's alleviating some of the parking concerns. We're also looking right now at some of the illegal apartments that we have and we've actually joined with the school district to try and alleviate some of them because we do believe if we can alleviate some of the illegal apartments, not only will those houses

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be safer and the people living within those houses be safer, but we will also be able to take a lot more cars off the street. I'm happy to say that that is going on right now. >> Question seven. Currently, Mayor Melheim offers a scholarship to Belleville High School seniors through his civic

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association. If reelected, do you have any plans on to expand on this support to BHS seniors in achieving higher education? Councilman Veles, if you are elected, do you have any plans to incorporate scholarship opportunities for BHS

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seniors to support them in achieving higher education? >> Yes, absolutely. I think this is a really great initiative that uh mayors, elected officials, community leaders uh have done for many years in Belleville and this is something I would continue.

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I think it's so important to support our youth especially in their endeavors to go further uh pursue their education, their other ventures after high school. Um, this is definitely an initiative that I would uh work on and to support our children in the school district and

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I think it's incredibly important that local leaders do everything they can to help support our youth um in achieving their dreams. Uh so this is definitely something that uh I would pursue as mayor. >> Yeah, that's something that I started. I don't think that ever really happened before. I'm proud to do that through my

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civic association. But I will say, not only do we do that through my civic association, which I try to expand every single year, I've created new programs in the last eight years. I'll just continue. I've created more programs uh in the last eight years, and one of those program I'm very, very

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proud of is the Veterans Day 5K race. Again, never happened before. We did it. So, we have a Veterans Day 5K because I'm very pro- veteran and we do a lot of services that support them and help uh get the word out about awareness for the great organizations that we have. We

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start a 5K program. Some of that revenue actually goes towards an additional scholarship for a Belleville High School senior. That senior can be the daughter or the son of somebody that's actually currently in the military or that scholarship may very well go to somebody seeking uh the military or going into a

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naval academy or something like that. I believe the benefit of our first scholarship that we did was a a young student, a female that was going into the Naval Academy if I'm correct. So, yes, I will definitely be expanding that. I really do want to give back. We're here at the WBHS studio and I will

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say class of 92 right here. I was actually the beneficiary of the WBHS scholarship was only $100 back then, but I did continue my education in mass communications at William Patterson, which is something I'm very proud of. answer your question. Yes, of course. We're going to double down on all that.

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>> Question eight, how can the mayor's office help lower the overall cost of living for Belleville families who are struggling with inflation and rising utility bills? >> So, in our form of government, the mayor is simply a member of the council. I

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think it's really important to understand that because in many forms of government throughout New Jersey, municipalities like Newark and Jersey City, uh the mayor is actually a what is classified as a strong mayor. So that is an executive level uh individual in Belleville. Again, the mayor is just a

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member of the council. So um the mayor's office specifically uh is limited in what it can do. Uh but I can tell you by working with our council colleagues uh to really cut costs and to ensure that we don't increase the burden on double families through uh rising taxes and

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look to slow uh taxes as much as possible is really uh the main avenue as well as by uh instituting programs that support our seniors and our working families and working with our colleagues on the council. That's really the primary route to do this. Uh I'm going to be honest with you. So everybody's

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struggling right now. uh whether it's interest rates, whether it's grocery bills, whether it's gas, whether it's PSCG, everybody is struggling right now. Those tend to be national issues or issues that could be held at Trenton or helped at Trenton. As the mayor, there's very little you can do about that stuff.

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And if anybody's going to sit here and tell you or promise you they're going to reduce those cost you, they're lying right to your face. What you can do as mayor, though, is get your municipal budget in line. Again, I speak from experience. I think that my leadership in this uh topic as far as creating

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budgets for the last five years that have averaged only $68, that goes a long way to helping families. If we can keep our municipal budget down, that limits the amount of tax increases you have. And that that helps you whether or not you're a homeowner paying taxes or whether or not you're a family that's

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renting obviously because that that building is paying uh taxes somewhere and that's going to trickle down to your cost. So, I think if we can keep our fiscal budget in line, which we have been, I've proven that I've been able to do that by cutting cost and finding new revenue. I do think that that's the best way to help families. Also, I will add

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one of the other benefits to some of the development you see is the fact that Belleville is under a mandate to fix about or assist about 400 low-income families with the upkeep of their house. Well, guess what? When I got elected in 2018, that fund had $12,000 in it. That

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fund is supposed to offer $22,000 free grants. It only had about 12 or $13,000 in it. We couldn't even issue one grant. Now, guess what? We have that fund up north of $4 million. Those are a lot of $22,000 grant that can help lowincome

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families. And I say lowinccome, the threshold is about $150,000 for for a family of two, you know, two two income owners. Uh it's it's not a low amount. It's $150,000. We have north of $4 million in that all done by developer contributions. Developers paid into that

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fund. If the developers didn't pay into that fund and we're under a mandate to fix about 400 households, the municipality and the taxpayers would be funding it. They're not because we have that $4 million. >> Question nine. When creating the township budget, how do you decide between funding infrastructure

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improvements, public safety, and recreation programs, especially when resources are limited? So this is incredibly important, right? When we're at the decision table, when the budget is introduced to us and we have to look um at the line items and

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look at the overall budget and the different investments, we do have to decide uh what we're going to do going further. I think it's incredibly to understand that, you know, times are tough. You know, we can't just be spending to spend and we have to really be conscious of the financial decisions

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that we make. Now, having been on the council and the board of education prior to this, um I have seen the budget process multiple times over, I think it's incredibly important to always put the needs of the families and as well as supporting our town workers before anything else, the bare minimum, we have

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to really uh invest in, right? We need to meet those bare minimum quotas. Beyond that, I do think that uh we need to ensure that the quality of life when it comes to the funding when you're talking about public safety, when you're talking about, you know, recreation

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programs and when you're talking about just providing basic township services, I think that's when, you know, that's where we really focus on. And then outside of that, we do have to be conscious and we do have to be willing uh to make cuts to things that are not necessary uh to the township because you

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know long term we need to do everything we can to prevent uh further massive tax increases on bable families and we need to do everything we can as elected officials not to increase that burden as well. So we take at the budget as a whole. Uh most people think that money

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comes in um to our coffers and it gets sent out to different places. Uh that's not necessarily true. money goes into a general fund and then we decide uh the allocations for that. But those allocations are usually set. So every single year we know what the uh budget is for the recck department. We do

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offset that by some income. Uh Belleville now has wreck fees which go to fund directly some of the better uh programs you see and the better events that we have and certainly the facilities that we have. So that money goes there directly. Uh that being said,

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when we look at public safety, we know how many officers, fire, and police are leaving. Um and when that happens, by the way, we might have 10 retirees. Well, they retire at the top of their budget. So therefore, when we hire new, they start at the lower of the threshold of the salary. They get the ability to

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come in at a cost savings, which is nice. So we always look at that. Every single year, I will say this, Belleville, New Jersey spends $4 million a year on roads. That said, we live in North Jersey. Uh we go through a winter. The the the roads freeze, we hit them

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with salt. U the water freezes, expands, contrasts. Uh we get a lot of cracks. We get a lot of potholes. Our teams are out there all the time. But we do spend $4 million a year on roads. And as I previously mentioned in another conversation or another question that we're also doing lead service line

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replacements. Uh we're going to be doing about $30 million worth of that over the next four or five years or so. that money is already baked into the budget. So, we know uh every year how much money we have to look at. I serve on the budget committee. I've served on the

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last eight budget committees as mayor. We know what our expenses are going in. That being said, just like you at home, uh our insurance costs go up, our our u uh health care coverage goes up. That stuff is really taxing us. We have to allocate more money for there. And we

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really really cost uh we really do look at what's going to have to sacrifice. We would rather sacrifice something initially than hit the residents with a tax increase. That's something that we never want to do, but I'm glad that we found additional revenue to offset some of those costs. >> As high school students and residents,

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we are looking for a leader who has a unique vision for the BOV of 2030, not just 2026. What is one specific forwardthinking program in your platform? something your opponent is not offering that will specifically ensure our generation has a reason to return to

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Belleville and raise our own families here? >> It's a great question. I think the overall theme of the future and providing uh for not just this current generation but the next generation is incredibly important and I think we

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really need to entice and create uh more opportunities for our youth here to be directly involved with local government. You know, I believe that our campaign has the most substantial platform when it comes to uplifting youth and uplifting opportunities uh for um our young people to be directly involved in

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local government. We've outlined uh specific programs talking about uh greater access for youth uh internships and apprenticeships at town hall and talking about having more programs specifically designed uh to allow our younger residents uh to come to town

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hall to learn directly. uh people who have an interest in local government and government long term to bring them in earlier. It is so important especially as someone is growing up that uh you provide those opportunities earlier rather than later. uh the this is

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something that other municipalities have already done and this is something that I think we really need to invest in uh because the future uh is not just tomorrow, it's today and we need to make these decisions that are going to empower our youth uh really ensure that

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um they have access uh to opportunities that are best going to prepare them uh long term. But I think also just connectivity and just being able to listen directly uh to the current generation through social media and different outlets and being able to uh

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take directly the concerns of not only the current generation but the next generation of el residents and incorporate that in decision-m in local government I think is incredibly important. So, I think providing opportunities for our youth to be involved earlier in local government and being able to directly communicate uh

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take concerns and to act on those concerns and wishes uh through social media and other channels in local government is important ways. Well, as somebody that's born and raised in Belleville, um I'm still here in Belleville and I do want to make sure that students that leave Belleville High School go off to college and come back.

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I want to keep those engineers, those architects coming back here. I more importantly though or as importantly I should say want to keep their parents here. So again we go back to making Beville one affordable and making it uh a welcoming community whereby people

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want to raise their family here. We have everything in Belleville. We have uh larger buildings for young professionals with disposable income. So maybe those Belleville high school students are going to be going commuting back and forth to school. We want them to live here. They could stay at home. That's fine. once they have a job, if they want to move out, move into one of our nice

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buildings with great world-class amenities with those views of New York City, they can do that. But Belleville is unique because if you go to the Silver Lake section, it's a more of a urban feel. The houses are closer together. You go to Routan Estates, winding road. So, we have a little bit of of everything for everybody. We want

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to make sure that their parents can stay here, whether or not they want to stay in that house or not, or go into one of our many 55 and older um units that we built in the last couple years, they can do that. But specifically for the students, we want to make sure that we have the programs and the facilities and the services that they're going to

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enjoy. I'm happy in my track record my track record on this topic whereby we think that we've really done some great multicultural events, cultural events, summer concert series. We think that we have with young uh professionals u students that are graduating Belleville High School going off to college and

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coming back. We now have great restaurants. Dare I say we have great bars, we have great murals. I do think that we've cast a much wider net. This is not the Belleville of 20 20 or 30 years ago. This is not the bell I grew up. I do think that younger people, specifically professionals, younger

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families that are starting off, I do think that we've worked really hard in the last 5 years to make sure they feel welcomed here in Belleville. And I most certainly want to make sure we keep our Beville High School students here coming back, especially their parents. >> Question 11. How do you plan to engage the community in decision-m processes

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and policy development for Belleville? >> I think it's incredibly important to directly involve the community in decision-m and policy development and that's why uh I believe in having uh specific community meetings uh throughout the year. I've already

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proposed 48 meetings to be specific uh to go throughout the different wards available. We have four wards. We have the first, the second, the third, the fourth, first, Silver Lake, third uh by the valley, Washington A, a little bit up north as well. Um, you look at the

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fourth ward, the white oak section by the high school, the second ward, which spans uh from Routt Estates all the way down uh to places like Dwit. Uh Belleville is extremely diverse. Belleville uh has many different needs and each ward is extremely diverse and

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each ward has many different needs. So, I think it's important to have more community meetings and more direct input in a formal manner outside of regular council meetings that are scheduled once a month uh to get that direct feedback to be able to act on that feedback on a neighborhood to neighborhood basis.

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>> I think community engagement is vital. I'm somebody that's on the street all the time. Probably in the last eight years or so, I've missed maybe four or five events. So, I'm always engaging residents when I see them. But, let's just back up. In 2018, Belleville was a dark place. I often say that sometimes I

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joke that Belleville Town Hall was like the Kremlin in 2018. You didn't know what was going on. So when I was a candidate in 2017, I made a promise and that pro that promise was I was going to live stream every single council meeting. Guess what? I got elected. The very first live stream council meeting ever was the day I was sworn in on July

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1st, 2018. I also promised an up-to-date website. That website actually has a repository of agendas, of minutes, of all of our ordinances, all the resolutions. So, all of that is there for residents that want to be involved in the process or engaged. Uh, that being said, not only do we have a

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website, not only do we live stream counseling, but you can go back to the township website after that council meeting and watch it the very next day. We are open and transparent. I do believe that I've had probably the most open and transparent administration in the history of Belleville. I do believe, no doubt, that I am one of the most

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accessible mayors in New Jersey. No doubt uh the most accessible mayor in the history of Belleville. Why is that? Not only do I attend every single community event for the most part, not only do I rarely miss them, I engage residents. Uh whether or not they want to engage with me on social media within comments, whether or not they want to

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send me a message, whether or not they want to email me, which is my preferred way, by the way. I tell people all the time, it's very hard to forward a request. That's a DM through Instagram. So, I always ask people to make sure they send me an email. Nobody sees my email. So there's no secretary, no

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administration, no members, no administrator on the other side of my email. Every single email a resident sends me, my email address is right on the township website comes directly to me. I not only see it, I respond to every single email usually within 24 hours. If it's a request or a need, I

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loop in that uh department or that employee, make sure that the resident is aware. You probably won't find somebody in this township, whether they agree with everything I've done or disagree with everything that say that I ignore them and say that I don't listen to them. I respond to every single resident that needs help and assistance and I'm

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very very accessible. And I do think that's the best way to engage people in decision-m process. >> Question 12. Most of our recreation programs are geared toward children in grades K through 8. What is your plan to create more dedicated spaces or

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programming for high school students and young adults, such as a community center or modern study spaces that don't currently exist? >> I think it's incredibly important to work with our partners in the board of education to provide those spaces for our young adults. I think it's

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incredibly important to think about uh shared services and how we can better work together to not only cut costs, but to provide more opportunities for our young adults. uh when we're talking about something like a community center, I think that'd be a great idea um and a great initiative for both the township

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and the board of education to come together and to plan and see where that can be possible or maybe retrofit existing spaces uh for uh students to study and uh to really just hang out and to be able to be in a safe space uh

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indoors year round. Um, I think back to uh investments into uh recreation spaces when I think about the indoor facility on Courtland Street and the investment the board of education made when I was there alongside my colleagues and just really how much the community benefit

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from it. And I think taking that kind of approach where you're thinking about how a space can literally benefit so many people throughout the year um is important is definitely something that I would think about as mayor and work alongside my colleagues both on the council and the board of education, the

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superintendent uh to see where we can make it possible because yes um having safe spaces uh where our young adults uh can meet and be year round is important uh not only when it comes to safety but when it comes is the aspect of

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community, feeling safe, feeling at home, and always knowing you have a place to go to um and thrive in. So yes, most of our recreation because that's a municipal service. So we handle K through8. I will say that when I got elected in 2018, Belleville had just one

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turf field and it was probably 8 to 10 years past its life expectancy. In those eight years, while we've been managing a budget of only about a $68 increase, we have quintupled the amount of recreation space that Beville has and all the turf that Bevel has. Doing so, we've

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partnered at times with the school district. So, down by number eight school, the township actually backed those bonds to get number eight school redone. We built the first ever uh municipal track. And I say municipal track because most people think that uh up here at the high school, the stadium is the high schools. Beville is unique.

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And I want to educate this uh Belleville is quite unique whereby we're one of the few municipalities in New Jersey whereby the facilities located at the high school complex are actually municipal owned, which is why you see those letters on the municipal stadium complex that say municipal stadium complex. I

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played on these fields. I was a varsity baseball uh baseball player on that current varsity field. I played football on that football field. I'm proud of the work that we've done. We've redone that varsity field. We've redone the uh practice track uh the practice field we used to call it. We've built an

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eightlane competitive track. We've done a lot of things to make sure that we have the resources for our students and for our athletes. We do want to expand on that. I would love one day to build a recck center. If you know the varsity uh the varsity baseball field out in right field, we have that paved area that is

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municipal owned. I would love one day to be able to build a recck facility there. Maybe even um partner up with the school district. Maybe the school district can end uh some of these leases that they went out and acquired when actually when my opponent was was on the board of education went out and signed a 70 or

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$80,000 a month lease for a recreation facility for a building we don't own. That's just bad fiscal management. If we had the school district to partner with, we could definitely build that and that would be something I definitely look forward to in my next term. >> Question 13. What are some cultural

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events and community engagement initiatives that you would like to implement that do not already take place in Bellevo that would help create a stronger feeling of community? >> I really think that going back to really the nuts and bolts of local government,

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right, when we think back, you know, hundred years, right, where you would literally have the local officials constantly walking the beat, walking the streets, I think that's incredibly important. And outside of regular uh board meetings that I'm proposing, I'm

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also proposing regular neighborhood walks uh between not only myself but other township officials and township professionals where we're directly walking the streets, right? Not just for campaign time uh but regular time outside of an election to where we can actually go to the individual

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neighborhoods um knock on doors and say, "What do you want to see? What do you want to change?" uh because again we can't just take feedback when it's a small window for an election and we can't just stop after that. We need to be able to 247 uh be able to go directly

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to these communities uh throughout the year get that feedback, get that specific neighborhood feedback and be able to make those decisions based on that information uh that benefits not only those neighborhoods uh but all available. So, we have certainly doubled down on all our community and certainly

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our multicultural events. Again, something I'm very proud of. When I got elected in 2018, it's important to note that Belleville is about a 50% Hispanic town. Yet, we did not even celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Uh, not only that, a 50% Hispanic town. Belleville

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did not even have Spanish speakers in town hall. I made a promise. The first employee that we hired in 2018 was a Spanish speaker. I now say that every single front-facing office in town hall has a Spanish speaker. I also helped get elected eight years ago. Our current deputy mayor, Miss Naomi Deena, happened

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to be the first Latina. She's also the first Latina deputy mayor. That being said, we did a lot of events already. Uh we're going to try and find some more, but Beville never celebrated, as I said just before, Hispanic Heritage Month. We do that now. Beville never celebrated Three Kings Day. We now do that now. I

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work with other uh communities and other uh countries andor islands. For instance, speaking of islands, we bring in the Puerto Rico police every single year to play a charity softball game with our police officers. Uh in a couple days from now, myself and Deputy Mayor Dep are actually leaving Belleville to

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head to the Dominican Republic because Belleville, New Jersey donated an ambulance uh that's going to a hospital that doesn't have an ambulance. So, that's something I'm very proud of. I do think that we've expanded a lot of our multicultural services, flag raisings, multicultural events. I guess in the

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next term, we could look to continue to do that. Uh not only do I want to do flag raisings, but I want to celebrate the heritage and the culture that comes with those flag raising. So rather than just a 10 or 15 minute flag raising, uh I would love to see, you know, dances and recitals and eat some of the more

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ethnic food because this is about a different bevel than it was 50 years ago. And I will say those residents, including my mom, that are still here, love and welcome all the new neighbors. Just like we were very friendly with our neighbors many, many years ago, you're finding that that great blend that Belleville has. Beville's a melting pot.

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It's a great place to be. >> Question 14. Some projects in Belleville have been stalled, like Belleville Food Truck Park. So with its limited progress and limited promotion within the community, how will your administration improve communication and accountability

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to ensure that residents feel informed about the decisions affecting neighborhoods? >> Communication is incredibly important. I believe that I do um a great job when it comes to communicating what is going on the township uh to our community

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members. Again, not during not just during an election period uh but throughout the year. And I think it's incredibly important to communicate what's going on the township so residents are informed and residents understand what is happening and why something is happening. Um so I think communication is incredibly important

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not only through social media but just overall being in the community, being in the neighborhoods, being at events and being able to be accessible and being uh being able to give that information uh when people ask. And when you're talking about decisions affecting neighborhoods

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and accountability, I do think we need to have two meetings a month, right? Because at the moment in regards to a formal uh means to accountability when we're talking about the entire council being able to act right now, we can only

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do that once a month, right? So for uh decades, we would have two meetings a month. Uh now we just have one meeting a month. So we only have one meeting where we could uh really tackle that accountability point and really not only asking those questions to our township

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professionals but taking formal action. So I think we need more formal council meetings. I think we need two meetings a month. So we have two two times a month where we can actually have that ability uh to really ask not only ask those questions but to get results and take

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formal action um and to find out why a project was stalled but also take that formal action but uh to also be able uh to give a greater space and more opportunities for residents to be involved and be a part of that decision-m process. Uh well once again I'm going to take

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issue at some of the wording the question I don't think it's stalled. Uh progress takes time. Uh if you know anything about government nothing happens overnight. Speaking specifically about the food truck park. Again a brand new park that didn't exist in Belleville beforehand. It is on Washington Avenue

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which does push back uh against some of the residents that believe every vacant lot is being developed. That's not true. We acquired that lot for a food truck park. That lot uh was going to take three weeks. We started that project in September. contract goes on board three-week project. This is government.

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Nothing happens quickly in government. We've been waiting actually for about four months for PSE and Gene come just to run one line. Once that line is run, the park is going to be open. That park is going to be open in the next couple weeks from now. I would definitely say that it's something that I'm really looking forward to because it speaks to

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a lot of different things. It speaks to the fact that we are investing in parks. No other administration has done that much. We are investing in open space, which again, this is an example of. We are not developing every single open lot on Washington Avenue. Another great example of that and we're building different things. The excitement around

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that, you know, in the last month or so, uh there's a blogger called the Montlair Girl. The Montlair Girl has never covered Belleville. Nobody ever thought the Montlair Girl or Belleville would make uh that blog. But guess what? She's been here not once but twice. She's covered that food truck and she's also

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covered some of our newer restaurants. So, I do think that it does take time, but we are investing. While we invest, we are continually going forward. We don't wait for one project to conclude before we start another project. We go concurrently multiple projects at a time. And I think that's the reason why

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we've gotten so much accomplished in the last 8 years. >> Question 15. With a substantial foreignb born population and many households having limited English proficiency, how will you expand translation services for town hall meetings, emergency alerts,

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and the township website to ensure all residents are equally informed? >> Look, Belleville is an extremely diverse community and we do have many residents who were not born in this country. I think it's incredibly important that uh town hall, you know, really works to

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serve every member of our community. I think it's essentially, you know, important that we provide opportunities for residents of uh different backgrounds to ensure that they are heard at town hall and they are heard uh when they're looking to get basic government services. Uh so when you're

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talking about translation services, I think it's very important to understand uh that right now when many residents go town hall, there isn't much direct ability, especially for Spanish speaking residents uh to have a lot of uh bilingual staff. I think it's incredibly

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important uh to look to provide more opportunities and really make it a goal that when we're looking at not only online services but inerson services that we at least have avenues right for

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um our residents to get bilingual services and maybe look at you know utilizing existing staff um where we could have um direct initiatives where we follow up with residents who don't

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speak English, right? Uh maybe we could go back into one of the platform points that I have where we're talking about regular scheduled mayor office hours where we could identify, you know, individual families, individual constituents who may not be able to speak English, but where we could work

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with them on a case-byase basis um and get somebody who could directly translate and help them work uh through those issues that they're facing. Uh, so as I mentioned in the previous question, I agree Belleville's got a 50% Hispanic population and we have worked really hard in the last years to address that.

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Not to repeat, but when I got elected in 2018, there was not one Spanish speaker in town hall. I spent my first week in the mayor's office and watching 11year-old, 12year-old, 13year-old kids, students, children come in with their parents so they can translate to our construction code department. I said to

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our construction code department at that time. How is it you traditionally deal with uh non you know with speakers that English is not their first language and they told me well they send them across the street to the police department to speak to an employee. And I said time out. I have a couple problems with that.

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One they may not feel comfortable going to the police department. Two the employee that they named at that time was not a Spanish speaker was Brazilian who spoke Portuguese. So that was a problem. The first employee they got hired in 2018 was a Spanish speaker. Now, every single Spanish, every single front-facing office in town hall has a

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Spanish speaker. That said, when the municipality can't do things, uh, I look to the library. As mayor, I sit on library board. As mayor, I appoint every single member of the library board. We have double down on ESL classes. As a matter of fact, I join them sometimes and practice my Spanish as they practice

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their English with me. I'm very proud when they graduate. We now have citizenship classes all going on at um at the at the Beville Public Library. So those things really do matter. Our website can be translated via Google translate right there. Uh that being said, it's pretty hard because we don't

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have necessarily Spanish speaking uh professional. So we can't do our language in two different uh we can't do our meetings in two different languages. But I will say Belleville just hired our first homegrown uh Hispanic municipal clerk born here uh in in the states.

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She's from Belleville. She's bilingual and I'm very proud that we were actually make that appointment. Question 16. While the board of education operates independently, how would you, as mayor, collaborate with Belleville public schools to support

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students and address concerns over adequate funding? >> So, yes, the Belleville Board of Education, Belleville Public Schools is a separate entity from the township of Belleville. Um, I was really blessed to be able to serve on the board of

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education for a full term. Uh so I know firsthand just the many challenges, many initiatives and uh the many different operations that the board of education has in comparison to the township. And I think it's incredibly important that the board of education and the township work together uh to put the benefit of the

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community and the students first. Um so while as a mayor and currently as a councilman I do not have a direct effect a direct overview and supervision of the schools it is incredibly important to work alongside our schools not only when it comes to communication but future

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projects. So when I say that I mean various things. So number one, when we're talking about uh long-term development, right, we need to bring in the schools for that conversation, right? Because before we talk about pilots, before we talk about different projects, we do have to think about the

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effect on the school district. Uh second, back to shared services, I do think we need to work with the board of education uh to see where we can work together to cut costs and uh really uh invest in our entire community uh as well as our uh young people here. And

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number three, just be able to have that consistent communication where we understand where both of us are coming from and how we can operate to best serve uh Belleville families and the entire community. Uh whether it be through community events, whether it be

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uh their different initiatives um and whether it be again uh going back to saving bevel taxpayers money and uh working together on future initiatives. >> Yes, that's something that I spend most of my time explaining. You'd be shocked to learn how many residents really don't

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understand that there's a separation of powers there. How many emails that I get from parents looking for help with the school district. So, I do spend a lot of time trying to educate parents of the fact that there is a separation there. The fact that again, while I've held the line on a $68 average increase budget,

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they say, "Well, u our taxes go up every year." Well, that goes up because of the school district. And I try to explain that. They think I was saying that. I don't. That said, I will say that we have an amazing working relationship. I even had a pri a great working relationship with the prior administration and the prior superintendent where we got a lot of

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things done. We got things done like prek service, which again was a school district issue where they weren't getting it done. So, at that time, then Senator Ruiz called me up and said, "Mayor, I need you to get involved. We need to find uh locations to make sure we could deliver prek." When I got

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elected, we had 12% prek. Now we're at about 94% because I got involved to help find adequate spaces to make sure that we could deliver that service. That being said, I answered in a previous question, the fact that I think we can get together to do things like a recreation facility. I am not in favor

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of all these highric leases. I'm not in favor of leasing buildings uh that we don't own, which is the definition of it. Uh if we're going to invest in something, I'd like to work with the school district to make sure that we can build quality buildings together. Maybe a wreck facility. I also, as I mentioned in a previous question, want to work

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with the school district to try to weed out some of these uh illegal apartments so that we can make sure that one, our roads are safer, and you know, god forbid there's a fire or something goes wrong inside that house where we've seen that happen, we can make sure that everybody's safe because it's not overcrowded, there's no dryers in the

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attic, there's no dryers in the basement. Make sure, but we need that cooperation. The school district, I'm happy to report that we do have regular meetings. I sit with the superintendent fairly regularly and we have a committee that meets with the superintendent committee and we've done so several times already to discuss recreational

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facilities as well as uh some of the trying to get some of these illegal apartments uh under control. >> Question 17. Given the current climate of our country, how is the township council working with Belleville Police Department to expand their community

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policing efforts? What are some initiatives that you would like to implement as mayor? >> Yeah, I think our Belleville Police Department does a great job when it comes to community policing and really community engagement. And as mayor, I would work to expand upon that and work

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alongside them and invite them uh when we do these neighborhood walks uh that I proposing uh regularly scheduled throughout the community in Belleville. Uh because we need to have everybody on board. We need to have our police. We need to have our local elected officials. We need to have our township

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officials, everyone needs to be together walking through the neighborhood, as a unit, as a team, one team with one purpose of really getting uh that direct feedback and being available uh for the people. Uh having the people see us, having the people be able to talk to us

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on a regular basis and being able to take their direct concerns in their direct neighborhoods and being able to follow up on that information uh to make those decisions that affect those neighborhoods as well as our entire community. Community engagement is incredibly important. I think it's an uh

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really uh substantial part of the job and we need to be able to make decisions year round and we need to be able to have that important information year round. Uh so that really does feed back uh into the overall platform of community engagement, accessibility, and

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a direct neighborhood approach. Uh I think the Bubble Police Department does a fantastic job. I'm proud first and foremost to have their endorsement, not just for this election, but for my previous election. That being said, our chief does a great job. He's a Belleville boy, born and raised in Silver Lake, rose up through the ranks

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right here. Many of our police officers actually rose up through the ranks. Many of our police officers actually went to Belleville High School. I will say that Belleville's community policing is second to none. I will say as I talked to other mayors throughout the state, they look to Belleville. They look to our community uh picnics, our community

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barbecues, our community bike rides. They look to all the things that Belleville does and tries to copy them, which is fine. That's actually a form of flattery. Trust me, I'm somebody that gets copied a lot. I understand that. But Belleville's commitment and our police department's commitment to our

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youth is unparalleled. We form those relationships at a very young age. When you see our Bubble police officers riding a bike um with children or you see them pull their car over and play catch with somebody or you see them walk students to school or you see them ride a bus to take the the students to

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school, we foster relationships in our Bubble Police Department with our youngsters at a very young age. And I will tell you that pays dividends as those students or children become teenagers or become young adults. They have a relationship with those cops.

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They know those cops. They respect their cops, which is something you don't see nationally uh at this time in the country. So, I'm very proud of it. We just started a community policing program in Silver Lake. I just did I promised it in my state of township speech two years ago. Once again, I

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delivered it. We put a police substation in Silver Lake, not for criminal enforcement. Those officers are assigned a community policing division. Guess what they're doing? They're walking the street. They're identifying graffiti. We're cleaning up graffiti. They're going in They're going in and out of buildings.

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They've identified 150 businesses. They're forming relationships with them. They know the kids. These kids know them. And it does pay dividends going forward. There's no doubt about that. We've seen the results. >> Question 18. Currently, when Belleville

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students want to socialize or shop, they often head to Nutley, Monontlair, or American Dream Mall, meaning our town loses on vital tax revenue. What is one specific economic incentive or zoning change you would implement to attract experience-based businesses like esports

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arenas or dedicated youth corridor to ensure our generation spending power stays right here in the township. >> So this is incredibly important where we're talking about financial growth and trying something different. I do think we need to do more to support our local

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businesses businesses here in Belleville. Um, and I do believe we need to inquire on different ways and different programs that other townships are already utilizing to support their business community. I think we need to think about establishing a business district here in Belleville. Uh, when we think about nearby business districts,

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we think about Bluefield Crossing. I think it's incredibly important uh that we understand that, you know, it's not just enough to say that we're going to support businesses, but it's important to support those businesses um not only every day, but also connect them with each other in a formal manner. Uh be

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able to really support a platform where businesses can come together, they can advocate, uh but they could also really focus on helping each other out and being able to invest directly in a business district. So, I think it's important to collaborate and I think

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it's important to inquire um on different programs to support our local businesses and I think as looking into establishing a business district uh that is specified to support local businesses made up of local businesses and supported uh by uh the council by uh

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various organizations is a step in the right direction. I think it's time to, you know, try something new. I think it's important to be able to, uh, be able to look into that. Um, and to be open to change. So, we definitely want to keep money here. Money here, uh, increases the economy in Belleville. Uh,

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I'm not quite sure about the tax part of that, but the fact that we can build up Washington Avenue, our business corridors, Silver Lake specifically, the fact that we can make them walkable, I think is going to help. The fact that especially on Washington Avenue is a $14 million program coming in from the state

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that's going to allow bike lanes, which is really good. The fact that we can get more people to shop in Belleville is key. Whether whether you're a student or whether you're a senior or whether you're somewhere in the middle, the fact that we can keep money here in Belleville is important. Again, we've we've invested in municipal parking lots

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to allow that. So, when you factor in the fact that we're making it walk more walkable, when you factor in the fact that we're doing bike lanes, when you factor in that we have bought the first ever municipal lots probably in 50 or 60 years in Belleville to for parking to help our business district, we're doing that. That being said, some of that

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stuff takes really entrepreneurs or takes investors to build. I get a question all the time, what's going on with the Kmart property? That's a weird one. First and foremost, I also spent a lot of time educating the public that we don't pick the retailers or the operators of storefronts. Uh that's up

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to a landlord to market to go out and get themselves a tenant. I can't put a Target. I can't put a homegoods. Uh my mother's very disappointed that we can't get a home goods to go in Kmart, but we don't pick them. So, we can create the economic environment and sometimes, yes,

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that does mean incentivizing a builder with a pilot program. for instance, you have to knock down the Kmart and build a huge structure. Well, we want to incentivize them and sometimes that does happen with a pilot. It's not a bad thing. So, that's one thing that we can do. Unfortunately, as we we talked earlier, some people don't quite

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understand how we can incentivize. That is certainly one of them. I would love to see something for youth. We've built the volleyball courts in Belleville. We've built pickle ball courts in Belleville. Uh basketball courts in Belleville. I've done all that. But if you're talking about some of the bigger stuff, that's actually something that's going to be done in the private sector,

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but we as the mayor and the council can create the economic environment to allow entrepreneurs to do so. And I think we've done that. >> Question 19. What is the top priority you would like to accomplish during your time in office? How will you achieve it?

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Why do you believe it is most important? >> I really think getting back to the basics is the top priority uh for me and my team. I think it's incredibly important that you know when we look at Belleville today and we look at the concerns much of them stem back to the

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basics of government right looking at how we can get services how we could give and receive uh important government uh feedback constituent feedback and just going out into the community and looking at the issues right when we're talking about overdevelopment we're

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talking about the quality of life we're talking about you know following up the concerns to constituents and just being there, being accessible, being approachable, and following up on their concerns is really important, right? So, I think for me and my team, it's getting back to the basics, making those

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decisions that everybody's going to feel on a daily basis, talking about again development decisions, how it affects the neighborhood, uh parking concerns, uh traffic, uh quality of life, and just being accessible, right? because

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sometimes it's not about doing something that's very grand and uh really out there. It's about doing the basic things and doing things that people expect of local government every day. U being able to support our local uh businesses, being able to support our town workers

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and being able to ensure that our residents feel heard, feel valued, and know that we are working uh for their best interest and that we are going to be there year round, not just election time. uh to hear their concerns, follow up on their concerns, and go to their

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neighborhoods directly. >> So, right now in Belleville, uh I'm looking at my third term. My first term was kind of uh squashed, let's just say, by a budget crisis, $1.5 million in debt to water. We made that fiscally solvent.

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Right after that, I dealt with COVID. Right after that, we dealt with the NORC lead line crisis. So one, I think I've led with experience and I think I've shown my leadership abilities for those first four years. After that next four years, we went to work on the budget stabilizing it and making sure that we

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can give residents facilities, programs, and services that proportionally match the taxes to pay. I think we've done that. As I ring doorbells throughout the town this time around, people say, "What's next?" You know, they'll joke, "Are there more big buildings coming?" No, there's not. The big buildings you see, the five largest buildings in

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Belleville, which all predate me. I've been doing that series all week now. Those are done. Yes, there are smaller pockets of buildings that over the last eight years we've had the ability to do. That being said, I do think that we're going to double down as we go into the third term on quality of life issues. I

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just answered in the previous question about a police substation in Silver Lake, about community police officers in Silverlake. They're walking around. They're identifying graffiti. We're cleaning that up. We're abating litter. You'll see Washington Avenue with DPW walking up and down abating litter. These are things that we're doing. I do

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think the quality of life issues. In the third term, I'm going to definitely be seeking to do more about quality of life and that might be uh addressing the parking which we're working on. We created a parking enforcement division which is working hard to deal with parking throughout the township. So, we've identified in the last couple

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years some of the pain points. A lot of them are we're victims of our own success, which I understand, but we still have to keep an eye on quality of life. In my third term, I look forward to delivering an even better quality of life for Belleville residents. >> Question 20. What are some ways that Township of Belleville under your

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leadership will support veterans? >> Veterans Affairs is so important and our service member community really does deserve better here in Belleville. I think an incredible way that we can do that is to look at the approach that uh for spec specifically the township of

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Nutley has taken where they actually have a department of veterans affairs, right? They actually have a veterans case worker uh dedicated to supporting our service members. And I do believe when we're talking about the budget, we have to think about what's in the best interest of our community. And I do

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think we need to be able to spend money to support our service members. That's not a place I would cut corners. uh they deserve uh the help and additional resources. They serve this country. Uh they do deserve better and I do think that is something that we should invest in as a township and really invest in

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future uh veteran programming. Uh we're looking at supporting our veterans not only with career placement. Uh we're looking at, you know, additional programs uh in the township where they can be involved more with the youth, with this with the recreation um and

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just overall providing them more of a voice um and being there to support them. Uh but I think um really initiative that I would support wholeheartedly is establishing a specific office of veterans affairs in the township of Belleville and really

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expanding on veteran services that benefit our service member community and the families of our service members. Uh I will say I think in the last eight years or so I have doubled down on a lot of veteran services and initiatives far more than anybody else. I'm the son of a

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veteran. My father was not only a veteran, but he was a disabled veteran, member of the DAV club here in Belleville. I started the Veterans Day 5K ceremony, uh 5K, that not only is a 5K race, which raises money for a Belleville High School senior going into

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the military or the son and daughter of a military person, but it's also to raise awareness for our veterans. I think that that's very important. And when they come back from service, especially now, we've had some we've had some active duty people return in the last 10 years or so, they need services. And the best place to get those services

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are our local veterans organizations. We have four of them. Very proud of that. But what have I done for them? Bevel's the first Purple Heart community in Essex County. Very proud of that. We spent $10,000 on a brand new monument uh to identify that at our veterans uh war

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memorial on Union Avenue. We now have the hometown heroes program. So as you drive throughout Belleville and you see those very nice banners, again, never happened before. Belville didn't do a great job uh honoring and acknowledge our veterans. I'd like to think that between the scholarships, between the

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5K, between the veterans programs, we even have uh made sure that some of that housing program assistance that we have where we could offer $22,000 grant to Belleville homeowners. I know for a fact that many veterans are taking part of that. It's something that we must do. We have to honor our veterans. And I

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believe that when the township or the municipality can't directly fund it, we need to work with those four civic organizations or those four veterans organizations to make sure they can deliver it and they have the resources, which is why we partner up with them all the time to make sure that programs uh

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and announcements uh and things that we could offer our veterans and those family members that are still living here that they can actually subscribe to those. I think we've done a great job with our veteran services and I'm proud to have their support. We want to take this time to thank Mayor Michael Milham and Councilman Frank BZ

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for your participation in the 2026 BHS mayoral debate.