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HILLSBOROUGH: Skaar says he’d be town’s watchdog

He’s the Democratic candidate for Township Committee race Tuesday

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   As Arthur Skaar Jr. campaigns, people tell him a Democrat is needed on the Township Committee to be a watchdog, he said.
   There’s no better issue to show that than the referendum that would allow the local government to take up to 20 percent of future open space property tax dollars and use it for “improvement and development” of land on the township’s open space and recreation inventory.
   Mr. Skaar questioned if the Republicans had a plan behind their request to use up to 20 percent of the open space trust fund for recreation improvements and development.
   ”I always felt the Republican Party and the Township Committee over the years always had a good sense of what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go With this open space, though, they just put it out there to see what the voters will do.”
   There’s lot of open space to be purchased in Hillsborough, he said.
   ”I don’t think they shown a compelling case to go into development and improvement rather than adding to the inventory,” he said.
   Mr. Skaar said minutes of the spring meetings of the Open Space Advisory Committee show statements about “building up a fund” and the open space committee wanting to first see an assessment of needs.
   ”This shows the deliberate intent of the Township Committee to keep the public uneducated about the true use of the funds collected from the ballot question,” he said.
   Hillsborough’s Township Committee is deliberately disguising their actions under the cloak of open space and trail,” he said. “None of the Township Committee members have told the truth to the public regarding the use of these funds, yet it seems that know exactly what they will do,” he said.
   Mr. Skaar has run his own private law practice locally since 1988. He’s also Manville Borough’s municipal prosecutor, and from 2008 to 2011 was Manville Borough Public Defender.
   From 2002 to 2008, he was general counsel to the Hillsborough Township Municipal Utilities Authority.
   He owns Fountain Plaza, a commercial office complex at 425 Amwell Road, and Tee-rrific Golf Center, a golf driving range, minigolf and pro shop in Branchburg.
   A former chair of the Hillsborough Democratic Organization, he was a candidate for Hillsborough Township Committee in 1996. He came forward after the party was left without a candidate after Will Kole won the June primary even though he announced he had moved from town.
   Mr. Skaar said the kerfuffle saddened him and he stepped forward to help the party. In some respects, he said, he feels like a RipVanWinkle canddiate, who fell asleep after the 1996 run and woke up to find many of the same issues — open government, development, land preservation — facing the town.
   ”In 1996 we were talking that people serving on boards and commissions should be open, not just to those in the party in power, but based on interests and quality of experience,” he said. “That’s still the same.”