Joe,
It is now obvious why you lost the election, trying to bring logic into poltics...it will never work.

Joe
Scott Frech, the DPW Supervisor, said he has both town chippers and crews working continuously clearing storm related debris from the sides of the roads. Some of the roads were really devestated by the volume of trees and branches that were brought down. Cutting down split branches and trees and clearing some roads that only had one passable lane added to the workload. Most surrounding towns are dealing with the same issues from what I have seen driving around.

Sounds like a great idea. Have township employees drag away your debris from your property. Forty two square mile town - they should be done in, What? July? Besides, we have buckets of money to fund that.

Ah, the nastiness continues here too.

LV Mom.. I don't know what is worse the Long Valley Forum or this website for the nasty responses people make. It's a shame. Definitely not what these sites are designed to do.

OK, why should the taxpayers pay to do YOUR landscaping?

Every house in my neighborhood that has branches at (in) the curb has plenty of wooded areas in the back of their property where they can put the branches, but they choose to burden the taxpayer to haul it away? My street is now difficult to drive down, given all the brush in the street, the children can't walk down the sidewalk to the school bus, because it's blocked with branches, an leaves are gathering and being raked into the gutter for the next storm.

When will people take responsibility for their own stuff and stop expecting government to do it for them?

Joseph, I agree. This is not an every day occurance, and with all the taxes we pay (with not much in return other than good schools), it should be dealt with when absolutely necessary. I do have property and did what LV Taxpayer suggests, but it is starting to pile up and leave me nothing but downed trees, branches, etc. I cannot afford to pay someone to cut them up, haul them away, or mulch them. I also deal with the issues of someone's lawn service just blowing their leaves into the road when they have plenty of property behind their home, contacted the police, and apparantly they didn't do anything about it or don't enforce the laws, as it has continued year after year (and this is A LOT of leaves and is plenty visable).

Again Joseph, I agree. I also have my own well & septic, and pay for private garbage pickup/recycling. I, however, cannot afford a tree person/landscaper and have to deal with quite a large lot all by myself. I am petrified of chainsaws and use a small manual saw (which can sometimes take quite a long time). I do believe the DPW does an awesome job most of the time. I'm not bad mouthing, but don't believe we have a lot going on in LV that keeps the police busy, other than normally seeing that it takes more than one to make a traffic stop, protect workers on the roads, and I guess give tickets to speeders going down 46. As for the schools, over 70% of my property taxes go there ($10,000). A bit confusing after building Cucinella (total of 4 elementary schools) that the classes still remained over 20 students, and we only have one middle school (that needs some updating), and one shared high school. But getting back on track, this is something that should be there in these instances to assist.

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking residents to do Joe. Are you saying that residents should chip and haul away their own branches, or that they should leave them on the side of the road for the town to haul away. I've seen quite a few neighbors who have left branches at the side of the road, but I don't see them going anywhere. Has the town agreed to pick them up? If so, has this been publicized at all? I hauled all my downed branches to the woods behind my house because I didn't know that the town would pick them up.

Mr. Keyes and others who posted on this topic. Please come to the Township Committee 2012 Budget meetings, listen to the discussions and then make suggestions where cuts should be made, programs or services eliminated, money reallocated, etc. to cover the type of project you are suggesting. I believe the DPW 2011 Winter Operations Budget is running close to "dry" and there is not a lot of "loose change" in other Town budget lines. At tonight's Committee Work meeting, Vice Mayor Harmon said DPW would be cleaning up storm debris well into December due to the extent of the tree damage from the snow storm.

My neighbor was dragging 4" limbs from the BACK of his property to the curb, where they sit, almost 3 weeks later. Again, why should the TAXPAYER pay for his landscaping? If he can't afford to maintain property that has trees on it (yes, trees need regular maintenace), they maybe he shouldn't live there?

I'd rather the town spend DPW money on salt to make the roads safe...

Folks need to take repsonsibility for themselves and we should give the Nanny (state) her walking papers!

You pay MORE taxes because everyone wants "the town" or "the state" to do things for them and to give them things. Gov't should provide roads, safety and that sort of thing.
Please know that I simpathize with anyone suffering hardships of ANY kind.
I CAN tell you that one of the households on my street that has a big pile of limbs at the curb just sided their house, 2 of the others just bought brand new cars. I don't think they fit into the 'hardship' category. This is a choice they are making on how they want to spend their money, and why should they spend their money when they can spend mine and yours instead?

After much thought, I have to agree with Taxpayer on this one. Mom, in the same paragraph, you complain about the government not picking up your branches, but then you also complain about your exorbitant taxes. Who do you think is going to pay for this branch pick up??? Asking the town to perform a service they don't currently perform is not going to make our taxes go down. If you're not able to maintain your own lawn on your own, then you'll have to hire a lawn maintenance service.

And speaking of services the town currently performs, do we really need Xmas tree pick up? If we're all able to haul these trees to our homes, aren't we also capable of hauling them away? The town should provide an area of depository for our trees, but do we really need them to pick them up for us? If we're looking to cut the budget, I think that would be one service we can eliminate.

2 articles in yesterday's Ledger - Front page "Treasurer blames weather for shortfall amid fears that mid-budget cuts are likely" and pg.27 - "Towns: Storm cleanups may mean higher taxes".

Read that last headline again.
Does anybody here STILL not get it? Anybody???

Here's the gist of the "Towns:" article: Towns have a finite amount of money budgeted for weather-related expenses, usually for snow plowing (OverTime pay), salt and salting (more OT pay), etc. This year, they've spent some of that money already on storm cleanup (trees blocking roads, etc.). More OT pay. They probably won't have enough money left in that budget to adequately plow the roads and salt them, so they're gonna have to raise our taxes. Again.
So do you think they should spend EVEN MORE of that budget on individual homeowners' cleanup?
People seem to think that there's some infinite pot of money that "the town" can just dip into whenever somebody needsor wants something, like Obama did with his trillion dollar bailout. But there isn't. We either pay more TAXES or go deeper into DEBT.
Which would you prefer?

Just for residents information not a comment on any previous posts.
Based on State Law/regulations/practices if the Township declares that the recent storm damage constitutes an emergency situation requiring additional expenditures above the approved 2011 budget, and the State accepts that claim, the town can "borrow some funds from the 2012 Municipal Budget". Any funds used that way are deducted from the maximum of a 2% increase in the 2012 tax levy, which makes a tight budget situation in 2012 even worse. It is not a loan to be used in 2011 without being repaid.
Interestingly enough, the State gets revenues from the utilities each year. Many years ago some of that money went back to municipalities. Have to wonder if some of that money could be made available to help the towns with storm related costs. Unlikely, as the State announced that anticipated State tax revenues for this fiscal year are coming in lower than projected (surprise). No matter how you slice it, the towns and the State are in for fiscally tough times for at least the next 2-3 years.

OK, so if a tree falls across a road or on some other state or township property, the state or town needs to pay for its removal. Rather then borrow from tomorrow to do that, the money should be reallocated from some less important, previously approved budget category. I'm sure there's some money out there that's been budgeted for some discretionary effort(s) that could be repurposed.
Conversely, if a tree falls on a private homeowner's property, then the homeowner should finance its removal.
This will preserve our entire 2% for 2012.

I've seen fresh driving around in a truck most days. And I don't see lame Tobin out doing anything except blabbing about things he doesn't know about. goodwork WT

3 weeks - count 'em - 3 weeks after the storm and you guys should drive down Pheasant and Mallard and check out all the debris blocking the sidewalks and in the streets. It's outright dangerous for the schoolkids in the dark mornings and driving at night! This is ridiculous, 3 weeks later. JUST CLEAN UP YOUR MESSES EVERYBODY! PLEASE!!!

What do we pay taxes for if not this clean-up? We pay higher taxes than anyone I know in any other state yet we have no public sewer or water, no public lighting, the fire and emergency serices are volunteer, and all I can see our taxes pay for is an average school system, road maintenance, and police.

Next year, if we have a drought, everyone will be screaming about all the dry debris from this year's storms and the fire danger it will pose. Better to get it cleaned up now. Many people are physically unable to clean it up or have no equipment to do so. This sounds to me like a perfect use of tax dollars and it will benefit everyone.

Well, can't agree with that statement about the unions. They exist to protect their members (very few of them left anymore) and we simply don't have a union to join. It does seem to me those in positions of power point to unions, minorities, immigrants, muslims, and those on welfare (whoever is in the public eye and under suspicion) in order to keep us pointing fingers at each other instead of them. Let's not fall into the trap of blaming each other and figure out a solution.

How about eliminating waste? People keep discussing tax increases versus cutting spending as a way to pay for things but the one thing no one discusses is how to do more with less. It takes more effort but makes sense. Let's look at how our local tax dollars are spent and figure out how to get more out of them. Every dollar spent should be scrutinized, and that includes our basic government structure right here in Long Valley. Do we really need the number of employees we have? What do they each do? Could we combine some of our "services" with those of other townships or the county and save money? Local school administration is one that immediately comes to mind.

As to where the money goes, look no further than the politicians who put money into their friends pockets and when they leave office (often before) the friends they help into office line their pockets. Just heard a guy on the market news use the term "crony capitlaism". We need to start a separate thread on this subject though.

@LV Mom: You hit it right on the head.
We can thank the NJEA and the PBA for the rediculous taxes we have, given most of our tax dollars go to schools and police. Last year they were running an AD for a LV Patrolman (bottom of the ladder) position. For starting salary, it said "to $86K", I kid you not. Most cops in our town earn well over $100K. Not bad for a town with such a low violent crime rate. It's not like they're putting their lives on the line every day like in Newark or something.
Here's a fun exercise - go do this link: http://php.app.com/NJpublicemployees11/search.php
and click the "agency/town" dropdown. Choose "West Morris Reg H S Dist". Click Search.
Now click on the column header to sort on 'base salary...".
Scroll down and look where your tax dollars are going.
Also, notice there are 336 of these employes at West Morris alone. PLUS, add to these salaries the fact that they only work 6 or 7 hrs/day, and 9 months / year. AND they play very little toward their benefits..All this effectively increases their salaries by about another 30% over the common working slob.
You can do the same for the police in town by using the "Pension" dropdown to get an idea of how much of our tax dollars to go fund them.
Now,don't get me wrong, I like policemen and teachers and think they provide a very valuable service to the community but, as their employer, I think we should have more say in how much they make, etc.and not be stongarmed by their unions.

Let’s clarify something here…. we’re not talking about limbs that have fallen on public property or on public roads, we’re talking about limbs that have fallen on residents’ private properties, and they have hauled them onto the sidewalk and left them there, blocking the path of pedestrians. Since they’ve now been sitting there for 3 weeks, haven’t these people figured out yet that the town is not going to pick them up??? It’s extremely inconsiderate of these people, and causes a safety hazard. I think what the town needs to do at this point is put out some kind notification to residents that they need to remove these limbs that were left on sidewalks or at the curbs, otherwise they will be fined.

@Cecile: You ask "what do they each do?"
Here's 2 examples I can relate to you in the last 2 days.
Yesterday, I was out walking and passed 2 LV Police cars parked driver-to-driver in the lot outside the EMS building on Flocktown. 45 minutes later, on my way back home, guess who was still there? Official business I think not.
This morning, 4 township employees came to pick up the branches on our street, which were mostly small and in neat little piles. Took the 4 of them about 10 minutes. My grandmother could've done it herself in 5. But then again, they're in no hurry to finish because they get paid the same hourly rate no matter how long it takes them. In fact, the FASTER they go, the MORE they'll have to do on any given day, so where's the incentive to hussle?
DPW should be outsourced. Why pay these guys to sit around, waiting for something to do, racking up a pension, sick days, etc.? If it snows, pay a contractor to plow. That would breed price competition and the job would get done amazingly quickly, since time is money to the private sector. Same with chipping brances and filling potholes. Only pay for these capabilities when you NEED them, rather than all year long with pensions and benefits.
It's crazy, it really is crazy....

Talk about waste...

@LV Taxpayer: Thanks for the link. After TRYING to live here quietly for the last 12 years, I am now becoming politiically active and seek to improve this township and get fairness for all (where the township committee wants it or not). If anyone has other links to public information, I would be most appreciative. Transparency is key to keeping our public officials honest and holding them accountable. For those of you who have not attended any of the public meetings, it is more interesting than television so come join. In the two meetings I have attended thus far I have learned a lot.
About the police and workers we see taking breaks - unfortunately, they are very public when they sit by the side of the road. Those of us in corporate jobs can hide in our offices, visit someone down the hall and have a personal chat, so I am not willing to condemn them directly nor demand they work every minute of every day. I am however, surprised at the pay rates. Again, perhaps we can combine the police force with another? Same with the township road crews?

Seriously, let's take this discussion to another thread. I am posting it now under "How to make Washington Township Government more efficient".

A few days after the storm, we called the town to see if tree branches (from trees on the easement) would be picked up. We were told "No". For the safety of our family & neighbors, we arranged for the branches to be cut & hauled away. All of this was done in a timely manner & we have subsequently paid the bill. Today, I witnessed the DPW in our neighborhood chipping the branches that many of our neighbors have left on their sidewalks & curbs since the storm!! I think I'm going to send the bill that I paid to the town.....it's not right.