OpEd: It's time to start telling the truth about the future of Wayne Township.

Over the past few years the blame game has been the standard operating procedure for political parties with regard to the current status of our town and the unbridled overdevelopment that continues.

Despite the screaming and yelling and ranting of our mayor and Councilman Scuralli about blaming affordable housing requirements on Democrats in Trenton, the Mount Laurel cases decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court are why every municipality in the state of New Jersey has an affordable housing requirement.

The question is, how do you handle it.

For several decades now, our Republican mayor and Republican controlled town council have decided to fight against it and delay it.

This allowed developers to come in and file "builders remedy" lawsuits against the township.

Fighting these lawsuits as our town leaders have done is a lost cause. The builders are going to win and that's why we have wasted nearly three quarters of a million dollars in taxpayer money on attorneys fees this past decade, primarily paid to "Regular" Republican or Republican supporting attorneys, to fight the battle we could never win. And despite our mayor questioning that number, I came up with that number based upon OPRA requests answered by the township.

That is why developers are building five or six market value units for every affordable housing one and we are powerless to stop them.

That is why our town population is about to increase by approximately 6,000 to 8,000 people as a result of the eight developments that have been approved or ordered by the courts.

But our town leaders had other options. They could have worked with nonprofits, religious institutions and NGOs to build all of our affordable housing requirements. Just as numerous other municipalities have done.

We could have created a housing authority and built our own affordable housing taking advantage of additional credits for senior housing and disabled housing. Just as municipalities like Princeton and Madison have done.

Despite how in my opinion our mayor used a "racial dog whistle" statement that "housing authorities are just for communities like Camden & Newark and not for Wayne," apparently wealthy communities like Princeton and Madison don't think so.

Now it appears that our mayor and Town Council intend to continue the same course. Our assessment for the fourth round is 1000 affordable housing units and yes, that may get reduced somewhat by things like our vacant land inventory. But can we afford any additional residential development? Can we really allow any developers to build more market value units per affordable housing unit.

In my opinion, we have a mayor who thinks that it is acceptable to not update a master plan that was created in 1994 instead of doing what needs to be done, creating a new master plan. That master plan might even reduce our vacant land inventory available for residential development.

But apparently our mayor thinks that Wayne is in a "Time Warp." That things have not changed enough in the 31 years since our last master plan and that creating a new one is just not a priority.

Our schools are already being strained with larger class sizes and are going to become even more strained by large increases in student enrollment.

And of course, in my opinion, our mayor killed the school referendum back in March of 2024 and lost us $40 million worth of state aid. He sandbagged the Board of Education and did not even reach out to them or administration before using the municipal "email resident notification system" to send residents videos attacking the referendum and used videos that popped up automatically when anyone went to the township website.

Our volunteer ambulance corps is already strained, so much so that, in my opinion, our mayor tried to secretly enter into contracts with local hospital corporations to provide ambulance services.

The same is true for our volunteer fire department.

We are about to reach the point where we will have to begin paying for our fire department and contracting out ambulance and EMT services. How much will that add to our tax burden?

Wayne is running out of water supply. Was that considered when eight residential developments were approved? Will these developments result in complete exhaustion of our water supply?

Our Township is full of congestion. Our roads are quickly becoming unable to carry the load of unbridled overdevelopment.

Is this just "doom and gloom" as some may claim? No, it is the truth.

Wayne Township is collapsing under the cost of services resulting from decisions by township leaders who seem to have little regard for preserving the suburban nature of our township or even slowing down the exploding population in our town.

Not to mention a mayor who seems more concerned about his own enrichment than doing what is right for taxpayers. Let us not forget how he attempted to sneak in an ordinance back in January of 2023, just weeks after his re-election, that would have made him a full-time mayor with an enormous increase in salary, lifetime medical benefits (and let's not forget that we are self-insured so effectively you and I would be paying his medical bills) and a huge increase to his pension.

Wayne is a ship without a rudder with, in my opinion, a dictatorial mayor attempting to be its captain and a town council that bends to his every whim.

The "perfect storm" isn't coming. It's already here!

While this is one person's opinion, facts are facts. Change in township leadership is overdue.

In November we need to send a strong message that status quo is unacceptable. I am not endorsing any particular candidate and perhaps the existing political parties in Wayne do not offer what is truly needed. What I am endorsing is "change."

We need new faces and new ideas for our town and we need them ASAP. The opportunity to save our town is fleeting and it is incumbent on every voter in town to make their voice heard this November.