South Orange Village President Alex Torpey discusses how South Orange Village has improved in the past year and what is on the agenda for 2015 during his State of the Village Address at the South Orange Performing Arts Center Loft on Monday, Feb. 23.
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — South Orange Village President Alex Torpey announced that the current state of the village is “strong,” though residents and government officials must continue working together to ensure things go even better in the coming year, during his State of the Village Address at the South Orange Performing Arts Center Loft on Monday, Feb. 23.
Torpey said, in many areas, South Orange serves as a model that other communities throughout the state and country would do well to follow. But he said these practices only came about due to the collaboration between residents who provide constructive criticism and trustees willing to put the village first, cooperation that must continue if progress is to be furthered in 2015.
“I am excited and thrilled and ready for the challenges that we will all face, because I know without one drop of uncertainty that, by truly working together, as we are doing here in South Orange right now, we will meet and overcome all of those challenges,” said Torpey. “And in doing that, we will show people who do not yet know the power inside each of them, and all of them together, that they do have the ability to shape the world around them into what we all dream it to be.”
Aiding in this collaboration is the fact that the village has worked to become as transparent as possible. In his speech, Torpey listed several ways the village Board of Trustees has attempted to open the local government process to residents, such as releasing raw budget data on the South Orange website so community members can see how village finances are handled. He added that he has even included $25,000 in the proposed 2015 budget for residents to decide how to use, whether for a tax refund or program funding. If that budget item is approved, Torpey said villagers will use the Peak Democracy software platform, specifically purchased for community-engagement purposes, to make their choice.
Other transparency measures Torpey highlighted included adding a second public comment session in Board of Trustees meetings, providing outlined committee reports before the meetings and hosting open office hours, something he said 160 people have taken advantage of so far. Additionally, he said trustees are always willing to hear from residents when they are out and about.
“It is almost impossible to go to an event around town and not run into one of our trustees, who are not only there, ready to represent the village in their role as a trustee, but also to take information back to the rest of the group about whatever was going on at that particular event,” Torpey said. “They are taking information back from suggestions they get at these events to the governing body, and some of those are becoming policy.”
In fact, Torpey said transparency is so important to the village that he plans to introduce an ordinance that states exactly what is expected from local public officials. For example, he said the village president would be mandated to respond as much as possible to public comments during Board of Trustees meetings.
Overall, Torpey said the village will benefit by making interactions as open as possible between South Orange and its residents.
“What we have done here is made our institution transparent and that will outlive all of us,” Torpey said. “That is something that I think is a real accomplishment.”
Also easing barriers between residents and the village is the advent of new technology and services South Orange has adopted, which Torpey said simplifies the jobs of village employees. He particularly lauded the SO Connect system that puts community members directly in touch with the Department of Public Works to bring attention to problems and get them fixed quickly. Plus, he said it eliminates the notion that residents need to have political connections to get help from the village.
The South Orange Police Department also takes advantage of technology to fight crime, Torpey said. As an example, he pointed out that the department was able to prevent the criminal flash mob problem through social media tracking and analysis. He said the village has invested in the department by strengthening technology and purchasing new cameras, all-wheel-drive vehicles and a new records-management system. Torpey added it is also in the process of overhauling the South Orange Police Department’s radio system so that, when completed, it will put South Orange on “the cutting edge of public safety communications technology in New Jersey and in the country.”
And that investment is being put to good use, according to Torpey. He said last year saw a 20-percent decrease in crime, continuing the trend of annually decreasing crime rates in the village. That reduction is the result of the hard work of South Orange’s police officers and detectives, he said, who are receiving recognition from outside communities.
“Their reputation is known,” Torpey said. “Our officers are incredibly diligent. Our detectives are creative and move fast. And our technology is getting better and better at supporting them and showing people how big of a mistake it is to come to South Orange and commit a crime.”
In addition to a decrease in crime, Torpey said taxes have also not increased much. Indeed, he said last year’s tax increase was the lowest in more than 15 years and the village is on track to have an increase of less than 1 percent in 2015. Additionally, he said the budget has come to a point of stabilization and the village has restructured its long-term debt to take advantage of historically low interest rates to save taxpayers millions of dollars through the life of the debt. And South Orange has implemented a debt-reduction policy in which the village has paid down at least $500,000 more in debt than new debt authorized in the past three years, he said.
What has also greatly helped the village’s finances, Torpey said, has been the recent resurgence in downtown redevelopment; in the last four years, redevelopment projects alone have brought in $164 million for South Orange. While that number is impressive, equally important is the fact that those projects provide homes to people, increase foot traffic in town and increase the ratable base, he said.
To see the positive effect redevelopment has had on the community, Torpey said one has to look no further than the 3rd and Valley project currently in progress. When completed, he said the development will provide 255 public parking spaces and 215 apartments, including 21 that will be the first affordable apartments in downtown South Orange. He said the project will also have taken a piece of tax-exempt municipal property and turned it into a revenue-positive property generating $575,000 per year for the village. That is a potential positive $116 net benefit for every homeowner on just one project, Torpey said.
Torpey said the face of the downtown district is a far cry from how it looked when he first started to serve as village president.
“When I came in, I remember having to beg developers to look at South Orange, to try and convince them of the opportunity that we all knew was there,” Torpey said. “Now we are getting an email every week or two from a new developer who has heard what is happening in South Orange and wants to see what is going on, because they are curious about investing in downtown.
“And looking at how many existing business owners are reinvesting by opening new businesses and by fixing and upgrading their current businesses — that is an amazing endorsement in the future of this community,” he said.
But as well as things are going in South Orange now, Torpey stressed it could all fall apart without collaboration between residents and village officials. He said a key reason for the current local renaissance was that community members refused to just complain about town affairs and instead made constructive suggestions to the village and, in some cases, even volunteered their time on committees. In turn, he said the Board of Trustees has forgone the typical political fighting found in most municipal governments in favor of creating policies that fix local issues.
In short, Torpey said the people of South Orange should continue to put negativity aside and use their government to do what is best for the greater good.
“This government is our government to control as we see fit,” said Torpey. “And if we want to use it to make things better, well, that is our fundamental right and our fundamental responsibility, not just as Americans in this democracy, but as community members here in South Orange.”