It's been two months since the change in borough council leadership and people are encouraged. In fact, things went quite well at last week's meeting. Of note, 1 West State St.(aka Broduer's) will now be listed with Zommich McMahon. This will more actively market the building than prior efforts to passively list it. Tough market aside, this was the right thing to do. As it sits, is loses $6,000 per month in rent to the borough and has been for the last 10 months.
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| Brodeur's 2006 |
It was announced that a family restaurant concept may take the place of the former Benjamin's Market (aka old Bill Battey's). No liquor license for the proposed business, but the model, as explained Thursday evening, will cater to families (think birthday parties and celebrations) and small community outreach events. Council was very supportive of the proposal and I think a lot of the town will be too.
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| 1 West Front St. |
Not a month goes by without news about the 3rd St. Bridge. Last week was no different. Council applied for $75,000 in assistance from the county. If approved, this will go to cover half of the design fees. A design needs to be in place in order to solicit additional funding from the state. Council, led by Pete Alyanankian and Monika Rehoric, also met with State Senator, Dominic Pileggi in order to discuss budgetary plans that may include possible funding for the bridge in the coming year/s.
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| 3rd St. Bridge |
Lastly, the big issue coming up and something that needs to be carefully looked at regards the pension plans for the workers of Media. At no fault of the borough, there is a deficit with the funding of these obligations. With the lagging economy, there isn't a municipality that I know of that doesn't have a similar problem looming. I'm not a financial planning expert, but the Mayor did a great job at explaining the situation, what is currently being done and what needs to be looked at going further.
Actually, having watched that entire meeting on TV, my impression of these major issues was that 1) 1 W State St is only now being listed with a real estate agency because the Borough had to go through a bidding procedure for municipally-owned buildings FIRST, this is the law, and not at the discretion of Council; 2)the 3rd St Dam meetings have been an ongoing process, involving local legislators for some time, and that there has been a court date set for some time (scheduled in January) to determine true ownership of the dam so that some kind of action can finally take place. It was not at all obvious to me that the "new leadership" had anything to do with any progress made on these two main concerns, rather these steps seemed to already be in place prior to the leadership change. Do you know any differently?
ReplyDeleteI will say it was good that Jim Cunningham was civil for the majority of that meeting. Whether Council President Alyanakian had anything to do with this or not, that was refreshing and I hope this continues.