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Municipal OfficesRegarding the Municipal Building, I want the minimal footprint necessary with sufficient quality to last 50 to 100 years. We don’t need “edifice complex” but we need to create an asset we can both afford and be proud to call Town Hall. We need the minimal, best, long-term solution. If we need to bond in order to solve this problem, we should do so quickly because interest rates are at a generational low and will start to climb as the Federal Reserve raises rates. With an AA bond rating Byram should lock in these low rates now.
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Parks and Recreation PlanAs Chair of the Open Space Committee, I am pleased that our team was able to secure an $84,000 grant from the Highlands Council for a two-year review of all of Byram's Open Space and Recreation assets. This review will produce our next 10 year Open Space plan and it will also make recommendations regarding both active and passive recreation in our town. I am anxious to see what these recommendations will be, and to implement them as possible. Over 1000 Byram residents participated in an online survey conducted by our consultants, the Greener by Design group, so now that our citizens have spoken, we need to act.
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Route 206Now that the construction along Route 206 is completed, we should welcome, encourage and assist economic development along this corridor, especially given that the other 98% of Byram is encumbered by the Highlands Preservation restrictions. I understand that years of planning have focused on this area of town, including the Village Center, but I also believe we need to include a healthier respect for private property rights as well, a bedrock principle of American government. As a municipality, we should provide necessary infrastructure but we should not be picking winners and losers. The marketplace should make those decisions.
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The Man In The Arena
Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship In A Republic"
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of
deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because
there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great
enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship In A Republic"
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of
deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because
there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great
enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
