Civic duties

New group hopes to inspire residents

By: Cara Latham
   WASHINGTON — Rising property taxes, coupled with the surge in school enrollment and a recent revaluation that taxpayers worry will only exacerbate the property tax problem, have prompted a group of residents to band together to make their concerns known to township officials.
   Forming the Washington Township Civic Association, the group began organizing in October and held its first meeting at the end of November. Currently, said David Patterson, the association’s president, residents of the group are in the process of setting up the organizational chair positions and are awaiting the results of the townshipwide reassessment. The group is planning to have its next meeting sometime this month once the revaluation letters go out to taxpayers.
   The group’s main focus is the rising property taxes, as most residents have seen their taxes significantly go up in the last 10 years, said Mr. Patterson, of Sharon Woods.
   "Basically, we created a forum so that the public can discuss concerns within the community," he said, adding that during Township Council meetings, residents can speak but they must limit their remarks to three minutes so that the council can get through its agenda.
   Mr. Patterson said he got the idea to start the civic association after having long conversations with other Washington residents and finding out that everyone was anxious over how the reassessment would affect their property taxes. He said he also researched other civic organizations around the country to see what they have done, and has a friend who is president of a civic association in another town.
   "They’re very, very active in their communities," he said. "They’ve been able to make an impact in their communities. They have a lot of the same issues that occur in Washington Township."
   So Mr. Patterson made phone calls and sent out fliers and had other volunteers work with him to get the word out. The group’s first meeting Nov. 30 in the Washington Branch of the Mercer County Library, had about 25 residents and Mayor Dave Fried in attendance. More people have since contacted Mr. Patterson, who has set up an e-mail list to keep residents informed.
   "It’s all about maintaining and improving the quality of life in Washington Township," he said. "Of course, high property taxes affect the quality of life in Washington. Of course, we have interest in schools and what’s going on with fire employees, so basically, everything that’s related to the township. Our immediate goal right now is to discuss property tax reassessments. We want to have an understanding of what’s going on with that."
   Mr. Patterson said that residents want an explanation from the tax assessor’s office about how it will affect them, and had suggested some actions the township can take to prevent the reassessments from having a devastatingly immediate impact on residents.
   Mayor Fried said he thinks having a civic association in the township is positive, and that he’ll go to any of their meetings whenever he is invited.
   "I think any organization looking to get involved in the township is a good thing," he said. "The town is facing a tremendous amount of problems right now. Taxes without a question are spiraling out of control. We need to make a lot of tough decisions."
   So far, Mr. Patterson said many residents have contacted him and have come up to him after township meetings to ask how to get involved.
   "I’ve had a lot of tremendous response," he said. "We’re anticipating a good turnout for the next meeting and that we’re going to have some very good fruitful discussion."
   Some of the discussion at the first meeting in November has surrounded the increase in school enrollment. When Town Center was planned, officials estimated that a high population of empty-nesters would move into the three- and four-bedroom homes, bringing an average of only 0.5 kids per household. But Mr. Patterson said he doesn’t know why the national demographic numbers, which have always estimated 2.5 kids per household in new developments, were used.
   However, the association is discussing options to present to the township, like the possibility of trying to get developers to contribute to infrastructure costs to offset the burden it would place on schools to educate new students to the township.
   While it is illegal for municipalities to demand reimbursement for the impact a new development would have on the school district, Mr. Patterson said there is no harm is asking the developers to voluntarily help out.
   "You can’t twist their arm," he said. But, "if (developers have) an opportunity to help you out, they will. I think that some of the huge costs that the taxpayers have can be relieved if we do ask the developers to help us with schools and infrastructure costs."
   Even though Mayor Fried said he is supportive of the association, he also said in phone interview Monday that he is concerned about some of the ideas that Mr. Patterson is proposing, including the idea that developers could reimburse the township for the impact they have on the school district.
   "I do want to be careful we don’t give residents the wrong impressions that we can do things like that right now — we can’t," he said. "Those are my only concerns."
   "There’s so much enthusiasm for this organization," he said. "This is a great town and people do like to get involved. It’s all about the quality of life in Washington Township. We’d love people to come out to the meetings."
   
For information or to find out the next meeting date, e-mail [email protected].