Questionnaire Will Ask Residents How To Repair Deteriorating Borough Facilities

Any borough resident who regularly visits the parks and athletic fields in New Providence is well aware they are overused and in need of repair. How to fix them, however, is a complicated process that requires money, community buy-in, and potentially a change to local ordinances.

At the borough council meeting on Monday, and after a lengthy debate, the council decided a first step would be to conduct an online community questionnaire through the Community Activities Advisory Board on what residents think should be done to repair the deteriorating facilities in New Providence.

At that meeting, New Providence Department of Public Works Director Jim Johnston said the lack of funds to maintain facilities on a regular basis and overuse of the fields have contributed to their continual deterioration. The rain this spring that threw off the borough’s contracted mowing service also didn't help. And, to top it all off, the fields are currently booked with consistent game schedules that won't allow for relief to the already stressed fields.

Fixing the fields requires a regular seeding and care program, along with treatment for weeds and grubs to bring them back to acceptable condition, said Mayor J. Brooke Hern. Financing such a program would be easier if the town could use its open space fund for field maintenance, Hern said, but the ordinance only allows that money to go toward purchasing land for open space. A proposed referendum question for the November ballot would "amend the Open Space Ordinance to allow funds be used for acquisition of open space and improvements to recreation facilities."

That proposed resolution has been tabled until the council's next meeting. If approved, the referendum will go to voters and will appear on the November ballot. Voter referendums, however, related to fixing the town's parks have a recent history of rejection.

Last November, voters denied a referendum proposal by a 2-to-1 margin that would have sold the deteriorating Oakwood Park to Union County for $1, in exchange for $3.5 million to repair that park.

Matt Cumiskey from the Community Activities Advisory Board told the council Monday evening that although that referendum was defeated, the park still needs to be repaired and seems to be the logical place to start before moving on with plans to repair all borough fields.

“CAAB would like to eventually present a proposal and a plan to the council, a plan that includes input from the local neighborhood, as well as sports teams and the seniors,” Cumiskey said. “In order to get conversations started, we plan to email a quick [six-question] survey to the neighborhood, ask them to complete the survey, and then follow up with a meeting with them to discuss the results, gather feedback on their thoughts about what should be done at Oakwood Park.”

Cumiskey said the CAAB has 136 email addresses for residents living in the vicinity of Oakwood Park that they would send the survey to first.

Council President Michael Gennaro said calling it a “survey” would not be accurate or the best way to determine what the citizens of New Providence really think should be done.

“I’m not sure your list of emails… is statistically representative of the sample. You’re sampling one neighborhood, which is not statistically representative of the town, and when you do a survey and you get a set of results and then you do another survey with the same questions to a different group, one group could be skewed by the results you get the first time,” Gennaro said. “I’m just wondering if your approach to open these discussions can be better built upon by meeting with groups and discussing the things with them in an open meeting, maybe even here.”

Gennaro also suggested the discussion focus more on all the town's parks rather than singling out Oakwood Park.

“If we’re going to do surveys, I’d rather go through the effort of commissioning a real survey and getting a statistically representative sample, and getting some real answers so we know what the public is really thinking,” he said.

Councilman James Cucco agreed with Gennaro that a “survey” conducted only for one neighborhood could skew results, and suggested the questions be placed on the borough website so every resident in town has the opportunity to complete the survey. From there, the CAAB and the council could obtain a broader range of opinions.

Hern worried that if the council did not allow the CAAB to send out their questions to the small group of residents previously mentioned, that would set back all the work the CAAB has done to find solutions for park maintenance and repair at Oakwood and eventually for all facilities.

Gennaro said no one is telling the committee to stop and no one is telling them their work is worthless. Instead, the discussion is about six questions, and whether or not those questions focus on one of the borough’s facilities versus focusing on all of the borough’s facilities.

“I do not support asking small groups what their opinions are on specific facilities. I think that’s probably what got us in trouble last time,” Gennaro continued. “I think there’s a much better approach that needs to be taken here and I think this community deserves to have input on all facilities, and I think what we need to do is have less focus on individual sites, less newspaper reporting about individual sites, less putting people at odds about individual sites, finding out what we can all agree on, and its good successes, good grounds, good improvements for our community to improve the athletic facilities and moving forward from there.”

"It might come back from the town that, ‘yes, let’s concentrate on Oakwood Park right now. Let’s get that going first,'" Gennaro said. "But I don’t think we’re going to know that until we hear from the town as a whole."

 After Councilman Vincas Vyzas' suggested that the "survey" be called a "questionnaire," and Councilman Armand Galluccio’s suggested that the questions go out to a larger portion of borough residents, Councilman Robert Munoz thanked the CAAB for all of their hard work, and suggested waiting on sending out the survey until after the referendum in November.

"I don’t want this survey having any kind of impact on the way people vote in that referendum,” Munoz said.

Gennaro agreed that Munoz raised a good point, and said this is a very important referendum, not just for athletic facilities, but for other open space in the borough.

“My biggest concern is ... we are going to turn this into a referendum circle, concentrated around improvements at Oakwood Park and we’re going to end up with the same type of polarized vote we had last time on a different issue, but people are going to perceive it as the same issue if we make statements like ‘it’s all about improvements at Oakwood Park,’” Gennaro said. “I don’t think it’s about Oakwood Park, I’m not ready to sit here and tell people what my choices would be for what parks we would improve first, second, third, fourth or how we do it because I want to see what the facts are, I want to see how much money is available, what it’s going to cost, and I want to see what the results of that referendum are. But I would hate to skew that referendum by making people think that their decision is preordained that if that money is passed, it’s all going to be spent on one park. I don’t think that’s the right way to approach this."

Gennaro thinks it is necessary for the council to sit down with people in town and talk about what improvements need to be made to facilities in town, and thinks the CAAB will be instrumental in helping with that. Cumiskey reiterated that the CAAB is trying to show progression and begin developing a long-term plan that will gain traction in the community.

The initial step rests in the community questionnaire, which is expected to be posted on the borough's website, newprov.org.