Politics & Government

Flood Mitigation, Increasing Revenue Among Top Bloomingdale Goals

Councilman hopes to update public on progress of achievement.

Flood remediation, upgrading the borough's utility infrastructure and increasing revenue are the top goals of the for 2012, according to borough council members and Mayor Jonathan Dunleavy.

New Councilman Ray Yazdi said he had noticed from attending borough council meetings in the past year as a resident that the council had previously talked about goals they would like to see accomplished, but not regularly updated the public on the status of the goals.

"We never go back to the important stuff. What are we working on?" he said.

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Now that he is on the council, Yazdi said he wants to "achieve greatness for our town" by creating a list of goals, working toward them and updating the public through the process. While the council does have a "Pending List of Items," which several councilmembers have questioned as the list appears to get longer and longer with so-called completed items remaining on the list, the public is not provided the pending list as part of the agenda. Yazdi also said many of the items on the pending list are sent to Borough Administrator Ted Ehrenburg to work on, but not prioritized.

"[Goal setting is] good for us, to keep us organized, to keep us focused, because I feel like that focus is not here," he said.

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Yazdi asked that the council start a dialogue to discuss the borough's priorities for this year. He started the discussion with some of his own priorities for the borough.

"Flooding is a big issue of frustration," Yazdi said.

In 2011, the council formed a that is examining the ways the borough can solve its annual flooding problem and apply for and receive funding to aid in flood mitigation projects. Councilman Glenn Schiffman said he thinks the borough should prioritize the utility infrastructure.

"One thing that's overlooked is the infrastructure of our water mains in this town," he said.

Schiffman said the council is constantly faced with paying bills (between $60,000 and $100,000 per year, Yazdi said) for repairs and he thinks instead of fixing issues related to the infrastructure as they come, the borough should consider upgrading the entire system. The borough is still in consideration of a complete and Dunleavy said the borough will be meeting with the Avalon Bay developers to discuss sewer mains.

Councilman John D'Amato said he thinks the borough needs to consider more shared services and the council members agreed that the borough needs to prioritize increasing revenue, adding that the construction of Avalon Bay will aid in that goal. D'Amato also said the goals list, itself, should be a priority.

"I think we need to create the list now, sooner than later," he said.


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