Hi Gang!
I hope you’re all doing very well. Can you believe we’re now not even two weeks away from Election Day? Excitement mounts!
As you may know, that leaves just one more Alexandria Township Committee Meeting on the calendar before the election, which will be next Wednesday evening at 7:35 PM. Just like last week’s meeting, it will be open to the public, and I encourage you to dial in so you can hear our Committee at work.
That’s exactly what I did last Wednesday, and—as promised—I’ll be sharing some of the key takeaways from the meeting in this post. I believe a quick, to-the-point recap helps keep all Alexandrians up to date on the work of the Committee, without having to dig through and decipher any official agendas or minutes on file. It’s something I’d definitely love to continue next year if I’m fortunate enough to serve on the Committee—and with your votes of support, we can make it happen.
But before we get to the meeting highlights, let’s first take a look at the latest voting numbers!
Every Vote Counts
On that note of transparency and sharing helpful information, I hope you’ll find these ballot-tracking charts as insightful as I do. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this year’s “rolling” election allows us to see how many Alexandrians have already sent in their ballots ahead of Election Day, and how many folks have yet to vote. Let’s take a gander at the count as of today:
In other words, about 45% of Alexandrians have already voted. That’s quite a turnout!
Curious about where those votes are coming from? I was, too. Let’s see:
Just under half of the ballots were cast by Republicans, 30% came from Democrats, and another 23% came from unaffiliated or third-party folks. Pretty neat!
As I wrote last time we took a look at the numbers:
Of course, the beautiful thing about our voting system is you don’t have to vote according to your party affiliation. And it’s been a wonderful honor to keep hearing from people who have voted for me even though they’re from another party—they know we’re all in it together here in Alexandria. That’s true democracy at work.
I’m continually humbled by the party-agnostic support I’ve been receiving from our fellow Alexandrians. (As it turns out, they’re location-agnostic, too—I even heard from someone who mailed in their vote for me all the way from California!) By extending a supporting hand across party lines, Alexandria is showing the rest of the country what genuine collaboration looks like—and I find that incredibly encouraging. Thank you again to everyone who’s endorsed my candidacy so far!
I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the latest numbers in my next post. In the meantime, let’s have a quick recap of last week’s meeting.
Committee Meeting Highlights (10/14/20)
Our three Township Committee members discussed a number of topics when they convened (via phone) last week, and the public portion of the meeting lasted over an hour. Let’s condense it down to just a few takeaways so you can stay up to date without getting too deep in the weeds:
As proclaimed and resolved by our Mayor, October 6th, 2020 was officially declared “Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day” in Alexandria Township.
Back in July, the Committee submitted a grant to the Hunterdon County Planning Board to utilize county funds towards a new roof replacement for the park barn. It’s been approved! The Committee is now navigating bureaucratic processes to actually obtain those funds and begin the renovation. As Mayor Plumer quipped, “It’s even hard to take money when it comes to the government!”
The Committee is in the process of reviewing an ordinance on establishing a Joint Municipal Court between Alexandria and neighboring townships. The current phrasing of the ordinance is a little ambiguous, so they’re going to confer with the other townships to make sure the language represents a fair agreement before putting it into the books.
Committeeman Pfefferle and Mayor Plumer would like to publish an open letter in unanimous support of expanding the Township Committee to 5 members—but Committeeman Kiernan is now against the referendum, which is being voted on in this election. He is opposed to both writing the letter and the increase in representation because he believes it will incur increased costs for the municipality. Committeeman Pfefferle stated it will in fact save costs, because it would remove the (currently frequent) need for a paid third party to be present when only two members wish to communicate with one another. Mayor Plumer suggested that Committeeman Kiernan also write a letter if he’d like his contrasting view to be published. In a 2-1 vote, the resolution was passed to publish a letter in support of Committee membership expansion.
The Committee is working on obtaining a new truck for the Township’s fleet of work vehicles, which are apparently in need of repair, if not replacement. Committeeman Kiernan expressed his concern: “Some of them date back to the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.” Mayor Plumer joked that he hopes that replacement criteria doesn’t apply to himself: “I also date back to the late ‘80s!”
Township Clerk Bobrowski will be applying for a grant for about $1,000 from the County to cover costs incurred by the Township in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Committeemen Kiernan asked if grant funds were available for overtime hours worked, but the relief efforts are specifically designed to cover such costs as cleaning supplies, masks, gloves, and the IT infrastructure for remote work.
There you have it! While the Committee went on to discuss other topics, those conversations took place in “Executive Session,” which is not open to the public.
Thanks for Your Support!
Thank you for taking the time to read about our beloved Alexandria Township. I hope you found this post informative and enjoyable, and would love to hear from you if you’d like to chat about anything you read here.
I’d also like to thank all the folks who’ve put their support for me on public display—there are still some yard signs left if you’d like to join them! Please let me know and I’ll be glad to bring one right over.
In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week, and I’ll catch you here again soon.
Cheers,
Max
