On Oct. 17, I stopped by Mayor Jonathan Hornik’s office due to concerns of recent robberies in our neighborhood. I had been hearing all kinds of stories from neighbors and friends and really wanted to find out how much of what I have heard was true, and if things were so bad, what we as a community could do to protect ourselves.
Ten minutes after leaving a message for Mayor Hornik, I received a phone call from him. He was sympathetic to our concerns and understood our fears.
The mayor offered to address a small group of neighbors at my home to explain the situation and offer advice on how we as a community could better protect ourselves. I told him I would contact some neighbors and we planned to meet on Wednesday night.
Within hours word spread like wildfire and I was receiving phone calls from the entire neighborhood asking if they could attend and if they could bring friends. Not wanting to turn anyone away, I told everyone they were welcome. Soon I realized that I could not possibly fit all these people into my home.
With the help of Lt. Douglas Van Note, a neighbor, Lisa Ryan, and the Robertsville Volunteer Fire Department, the meeting was moved to the Robertsville firehouse. Amazingly, within three hours we were able to get the word out to approximately 150 residents that the meeting location was changed.
It was amazing to see so many people come together in such a short time. We are a community and we have to solve this problem as a community.
We were given very good safety advice from the Marlboro Police Department. Both the mayor and the police department have proved to me that they are doing everything they can to keep us safe.
Many residents offered suggestions and concerns. One issue was that our development is lacking adequate lighting. On Thursday morning township officials were already looking into adding more lighting to our streets. We are being taken seriously and the township is being proactive. We need to be alert and contact the police anytime we see something that does not look right.
To those residents who did not know about the meeting, we tried our best to get the information out to as many people as we could. We did not intentionally leave anyone out.
With the help of Lt. Van Note, Lisa Ryan, Beth Simmons and me, we are starting a neighborhood watch program. This program will allow better communication between us and the police department.
We will be able to get important information out to our development though email
and phone calls. We are inviting everyone to participate, provide their information and volunteer to help.
I would personally like to thank Mayor Hornik for his compassion, for understanding our fears and for quickly responding to these concerns with honesty and sincerity.
I would like to thank Deputy Police Chief Eric Landau, Lt. Van Note, Lt. Fred Reck and the rest of the Marlboro Police Department for answering our questions, providing us with information and suggesting solutions to improve the safety of our community.
A big thank you to Jim Mione, Keith Goff and the Robertsville firehouse for opening their doors to us with just a few hours’ notice and accommodating over 150 residents.
To Lisa Ryan, thank you for taking on the community watch program and for talking me into moving the meeting to a larger space. (What was I thinking?) Lastly, thank you to my neighbors who came out in force to support our development.
Stacy Healy
Marlboro

