BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer
HOWELL — Democratic mayoral candidate Steve Farkas says he has a lot of ideas on how to manage Howell’s growth.
Farkas is running for a four-year term as Howell’s mayor against Repub-lican Joseph M. DiBella and independent candidate James P. Garvey in the Nov. 2 general election.
DiBella is a current member of the Township Council.
Two-term Democratic Mayor Timothy J. Konopka is not seeking re-election.
Under Howell’s form of government, the mayor is directly elected by voters but is a member of the council.
First, Farkas says, officials should be looking to control residential growth in Howell by expanding the township’s agricultural residential enterprise zones from the present ARE-2, or 2-acre zoning, to ARE-6, for 6-acre zoning, to achieve lower density.
Also, Farkas said, the town’s focus should be on bringing more commercial business, both professional and retail, to Route 9.
“Don’t give abatements for taxes to these businesses, but rather impress them with the growing success of the Route 9 corridor and how this heavily traveled area would be bringing much business their way,” Farkas said.
Farkas said giving businesses tax abatements is like paying for the companies’ emergency and police services, something he said is usually done for nonprofit organizations and not businesses.
He said that as the council’s purported purpose for courting commercial ratables was to reduce the tax burden for citizens, he said abatements would do just the opposite and therefore they should not be considered.
“This would lead to businesses having large tax cuts and our residents having large tax increases,” Farkas said.
Farkas said he is in favor of the council adopting a pay-to-play policy.
“Good tax policy requires a reduction of professional fees and that means we need real pay-to-play reform,” Farkas said.
Some of his suggestions include not allowing developers to donate to political campaigns.
DiBella has submitted a pay-to-play proposal that would ban all donations from developers, among other things. He and his running mate, Councilwoman Cynthia Schomaker, who is seeking re-election, are preparing an ordinance that will address ethics in government, including a ban on pay-to-play, which is defined as rewarding some campaign donors with public contracts.
Under Farkas’ plan, any professional who donates to a campaign would be banned for one year from bidding on any municipal contract or position, including the township attorney’s post.
“I don’t have a problem with donating, but it should be done with no strings attached,” he said.
Farkas said professionals’ donations should also be restricted to no more than $2,200 per campaign, the same amount individuals are restricted to when donating to a political candidate.
As to seeking professional bids on contracts, Farkas advocates that all municipal contracts be required to solicit a minimum of three bids.
One particular point of focus for Farkas would be to lower the amount the township pays in professionals’ fees by having the township employ an in-house attorney and engineer.
“Due to the fact that legal fees and engineering fees are the largest part of the town’s professional fees, it is necessary to have in-house positions in those areas,” he said. “Howell has expanded to such a point that it is no longer cost-effective to appoint outside contractors for such duties.”
According to Farkas, Howell’s municipal attorney, Thomas Gannon, billed the township a total of $469,000 from January 2003 to July 2004.
“If we paid [an attorney] a set salary of $100,000, then we can save an average of $200,000 per year on legal fees alone,” he said.
When it comes to bonding for payment on anything, Farkas said the practice should be eliminated except in emergency cases. He said bonding should only be done following a public referendum. He said the only exception is in emergency cases dealing with the safety of citizens or a major infrastructure repair.
Farkas said once elected, he would call for the council to “outlaw the theft of emergency funds.” He said he was referring to the Republican majority council’s decision to appropriate $750,000 from the municipal sewer surplus to offset the general fund of the 2004 municipal budget, which resulted in a tax savings for everyone in Howell.
“They’re playing politics with our budget,” said Farkas, who added that the difference will be seen in next year’s budget when “they won’t be able to use an election gimmick.”
Finally, Farkas said he would like to see officials focus more on obtaining state and federal grants.
“It is important to seek out every available avenue to secure revenue for the town in order to slow the increase in taxes to the citizens,” he said. “To that end, it is imperative to aggressively lobby both our state and federal representatives for increased funding as well as seeking out grant money for any new specialized services.”
Farkas said if he is elected in November his initiatives, if enacted, would stabilize Howell’s tax rates by lowering the municipal budget and removing the council’s borrowing power.