Merger plan is news to Manalapan

Englishtown may poll residents to gauge interest on joining neighboring town

BY MARK ROSMAN Staff Writer

In the end, it will take two to tango. Reacting to a story that appeared in a local daily newspaper last week, Manalapan Mayor Richard Klauber expressed surprise to learn that officials in Englishtown are apparently going to consider asking residents of the borough if they want to become part of Manalapan.

At the time Manalapan officials read that March 26 article, according to Klauber, no one from Englishtown had approached Manalapan to discuss the idea and no had considered what may happen if Manalapan does not want to merge with Englishtown.

By the end of the week Englishtown Mayor Thomas Reynolds had reached out to Klauber and brought him up to speed about the situation.

As they develop a municipal budget for 2009, Englishtown officials have reiterated what they have been saying for the past few years: it is becoming more difficult for Englishtown to maintain its status as an independent municipality.

Englishtown Councilwoman Jayne Carr was very direct in her assessment of the situation when she told the News Transcript on March 27, “We died and we just don’t know it yet.”

She said the borough’s financial problems are occurring because of reductions in state aid, increases in salaries, decreasing return on investments and a recent revaluation of all properties in the borough that doubled some people’s property taxes and created a significant hardship for those individuals.

Carr said it is inevitable that something must be done to address the borough’s situation and said Englishtown officials should sit down with their counterparts in Manalapan to discuss the issue while they are still able to operate from a position of strength.

According to Carr, Englishtown has assets that include a water and sewer system, a residential and commercial tax base, its Main Street district, a Centers of Place designation, the historic Village Inn, Sanford Park and Lake Weamaconk.

Carr said the state wants mergers like this happen and said, “I will ask Gov. (Jon) Corzine what tools he will give us to guide us through the transition if this is to happen.”

Reynolds said if state officials want municipalities to merge, they will have to provide incentives to both municipalities.

“Before we talk about a (ballot) referendum, I would meet with Manalapan’s representatives” to see if they are amenable to this idea, the mayor said.

Klauber said the ramifications of a decision to merge two municipalities would have to be known before a decision could be made on how to proceed.

He said he is looking out for the residents of Manalapan and Reynolds is looking out for the residents of Englishtown. Klauber said he agreed to bring the issue to the Manalapan Township Committee to get a sense of how his fellow township officials would like to proceed.

He said residents of both municipalities would have to vote to proceed with such a merger.

“Our residents would need to know the ramifications” before they could be asked to make a decision that would combine Englishtown and Manalapan, the mayor said.

Englishtown is completely surrounded by Manalapan and has about 2,000 residents. Manalapan has about 39,000 residents.

Contact Mark Rosman at [email protected].