Council approves $4M for capital improvements BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer EDISON - The Township Council unanimously approved an ordinance that would borrow about $4million to fund various capital improvement projects throughout the township, during its meeting on April 28. The ordinance allows the issuing of $3,870,000 in bonds to cover $4,068,000 in appropriations. The difference- $198,000 - is the amount needed to make down payments on the projects the bonds will be paying for. While some members of the council wondered why the most recently passed budget wasn't enough to cover certain items, in general themeasure received positive support from local officials. The money is meant to pay for things such as repairs, new equipment and infrastructure improvements. The three biggest items include building renovations, which are estimated to run around $800,000, road work, estimated at $997,000, and new vehicles, for which $568,000 will be set aside. The building renovations include the library, the senior center, and firehouses. It also covers repairs at the Stelton andMinnie B. Veal community centers, the animal shelter, and the municipal building. The road projects will focus on paving the municipal roadways, reconstructing BrunswickAvenue, and installing a gating system. Various township departments will also have new vehicles added to their fleet, including aminibus for transporting seniors, a stake body truck for the sanitation division, a pickup truck for the property division, a dump truck for the parks division, a utility truck and dump truck for the streets division, and a new top-loading truck for recycling. A separate but similar ordinance borrowed $420,000 for a new sewer vacuum truck and a new pickup truck for sewer workers, as well as for the replacement of portable generators and other safety equipment. Councilwoman Antonia Ricigliano said that while she did not begrudge the extra money the library was receiving through the bond ordinance, she wondered why the money, about $45,000 of the $800,000 devoted to building renovations, could not have been included in the budget. During the public comment section, Bill Stevens, a former Edison councilman and a regular fixture at township meetings, echoed the concerns raised by Ricigliano, saying that if there were needs for the library, then they should have been budgeted for to begin with. "I'm beginning to wonder why we do budgets at all, especially when we just did the budget a month ago. If the library needed the additional $45,000, it should have been in their budget. … I don't know how you can just get the budget of the library done and then throw in $45,000, unless it's some sort of emergency appropriation. … You need to follow the process. … If it doesn't make any difference, why would we ever have anything in the library budget?" Township Business Administrator Anthony Cancro said that the problems needing attention came about only in late January, after the point where such things could be added in, thus necessitating placing library expenses in the capital improvement budget. He also said that in the grand scheme of the Edison budget, the amount borrowed for capital improvements isn't really that much. "In order of magnitude…our budget is over $115 million and our capital improvement plan is $4million.…I think the number is way small, but it's the best we can do," said Cancro. Library Director JudithMansbach said the library's North Edison branch was experiencingmany problems related to water and drainage, and chief among them involves the bathroom floor in the children's wing, which is beginning to sink into the ground. "We do put aside money for building maintenance, but this is over the amount of what we can do.We have three buildings we have tomaintain and lots of other building problems," said Mansbach. In the end, despite stated reservations from Ricigliano and Councilman Anthony Massaro, the council unanimously adopted the spending plan.