Mayoral Candidate Conley to Host Town Meetings

Because we are facing drastic reductions in the municipal budget, at a recent council meeting, Council Member and Mayoral Candidate Bob Conley proposed a task force to ask Madison residents what services they wanted to keep or cut.

Before voting against the proposal, one council member argued that she was elected to make the hard decisions. “Madison is not alone in the challenges we face in the new economy,"  said Conley after a surprise 4-2 vote rejected the task force. "Difficult decisions are being made from to the Capital. What we decide today will change the way we do business for years to come and could have implications on the quality of life in Madison. We cannot make these decisions in a vacuum.” The task force would have gathered recommendations and opinions from a cross-section of residents and offered non-binding recommendations to the Mayor and Council to help them prepare the 2012 budget.

"I was elected to listen to residents and make educated decisions. I want to hear what kind of community the people who live here want ," says Conley. "Therefore, I am going ahead with a series of meetings to solicit their ideas on the future of Madison." Each meeting will outline where the Borough money comes from and where it goes, followed by a series of discussion questions to gather the opinions and recommendations of residents. “I believe that sharing information with the residents and providing them an opportunity to make informed recommendations will best enable our elected officials to take the tough steps that lie ahead. I will take this information back to the Council when we begin to work on the 2012 budget.”  His running mates Carmela Vitale and Bob McDowell will join him at these meetings.

As the senior member on the Borough Council, Conley is currently serving his second year as Chair of Finance. In this capacity, at a Council meeting, he chaired the town meeting on “Fiscal management in a Changing World.” This past year, he made a presentation to Mayor and Council on a long-range look at capital projects and the budget.

The Vice President of Operations for the , Bob Conley is a life-long resident of Madison. He has served on the Borough Council since July 2005, having been appointed after the sudden death of Jiggs Mantone. He was elected that November and reelected in 2008. He lives on Fairwood Road with his wife and two sons.

Currently meetings have been set for May 19 at the home of Tom and Judy Honohan on Woodside Road and for May 25 at the social room at the Madison Commons. Both meetings will start at 7:30  p.m. For information on future dates, to reserve seats for the two scheduled meetings or to schedule a meeting for your neighborhood, email ConleyForMayor@gmail.org.
 
Bob Conley
24 Fairwood Rd.
Madison, N.J., 07940
rhconley@optonline.net