Bridgewater Mayor to Leave at End of Term

Mayor Flannery speaks at the dedication of new Municipal Complex

In an e-mail message sent to all Bridgewater residents who have subscribed to the Township’s Internet mailing list, Mayor Patricia Flannery announced today that she will not seek re-election eleven months from now, when her term of office is up.

Below is the complete text of her communiqué to the citizens of Bridgewater.

I have edited my original submission to provide a “read more” break after the first paragraph of the Mayor’s letter on account of space considerations.

The entire letter is well worth your reading time. If you did not sign up for Bridgewater’s e-mail distribution list, yet would like to read a full account of Mayor Flannery’s achievements in her own words, just click on the “read more” link below:

Dear Bridgewater Residents, Board and Committee members, and Staff:

I write today to tell you that I have decided not to seek reelection.  I will retire as mayor at the completion of my term at the end of this year.  Serving as Mayor has been an honor, a challenge, and an enriching and time consuming experience.  I have truly enjoyed working with each of you, and most importantly, I am proud of our accomplishments over the last seven years.

Snowbound!



A frosting of snow cakes the trees in Bridgewater on Thursday Morning.



One of my favorite poets is John Greenleaf Whittier. He produced Snowbound, an idyllic tale which reads on for eighteen delightful pages in my library’s hardbound edition of his works.

Whittier, who was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts during the early 1800’s, wrote this magnificent piece in 1866, as a mature person reflecting upon and capturing the memories of his youth on a New England homestead, while a crippling nor’easter was about to descend upon him and his family.

Upon its first publication, Snowbound became an instant success, praised by academics of the time and read by thousands of admirers.  According to an editor’s review, Whittier’s “first royalties were about ten thousand dollars,” a veritable fortune in the mid-1800’s, and nothing to sneeze at, even today.

This epic idyll of Whittier’s wintry tale and reminiscences of his life begins with: 

The sun that brief December day

Rose cheerless over hills of gray,

And, darkly circled, gave at noon

A sadder light than waning moon. . .

It sank from sight before it set. . .

A hard dull bitterness of cold,

The coming of the snow-storm told.

The wind blew east; we heard the roar….

On Thursday, an impressionistic sun sets over Bridgewater.

I was introduced to this work as a teenager in Maine, when snowstorms like the ones we are now experiencing in Bridgewater were a common occurrence. 

I don’t know whether Whittier is taught these days in social studies classes at high schools, but he should be:  One of the most compelling reasons is that he was not merely a great lyrical poet, but also a staunch abolitionist – at a time when it was very unpopular for a famous northern writer to hold such a view.

Whittier faced great personal and professional pressures because of his progressive vision against slavery: His public stance and his writings on the subject contributed to the first of two nervous breakdowns during his lifetime.

He published nearly one hundred forceful poems in defense of emancipation, never once faltering in his convictions.

Another Meeting: Another Overflow Audience – this Time, Parents at the Wade Building of the BR-BOE

Let’s make this one brief. 

Parents listen to a parent at the lectern just outside this photo to the right.

Looks like my hunch about the board’s agenda turned out to be a lucky guess:  This evening, the Bridgewater-Raritan School District pulled back from a presentation scheduled to be given by the superintendent, proposing to tentatively have school personnel take over the school district’s Before/After Care Program from the non-profits now running this program in the various schools throughout the district.

More about this and the status of the budget later.  I just wanted for you to see the size of the turnout on this controversial topic. 

What you see in the photo does not capture the people standing against the wall to the right, those in the back of the room, others in the hallway, and all the other parents trying to get a good view of the proceedings from the two doorways leading into the meeting room.

Take care of yourselves tomorrow morning, as you head out to each of your respective responsibilities.  The weather won’t be accommodating to your efforts!

Thanks to you kind folks who let me through to take photos.

B-R Schools Before/After Care Programs: Second Thoughts?

Dr. Schilder at December, 2010 meeting for the 2011-2012 budget.

I have been amazingly gratified these days to see how citizens can get the attention of their elected officials when they assemble peacefully, yet express themselves with assertion as they make their views known. 

First, it was the reinstatement of a wrestling coach in Potomac, MD, following his firing by a high school principal, after a staunch group of parents objected to his dismissal as an over-reaction by school staff.

Then, in Bridgewater, it was the surprisingly large turnout of voters yesterday who filled the Township Building to its bursting point, regarding a proposed change-of-use petition before the Planning Board for the Redwood Inn property on Mountain Top Road. 

Third, there has been a recent push-back from Bridgewater-Raritan parents with children in the before-and-after- care programs at the various school locations:  It appears that the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education may be on the verge of taking a second look at a proposal which was to be presented this evening by the superintendent.

The online agenda which I pulled up a few days ago had this topic listed under a line item entitled “Superintendent’s Report,” to be followed by a presentation of the 2011-2012 budget.

 However, a “revised agenda” which I pulled up this afternoon has removed the before-and-after-care program from the Superintendent’s Report, and has remanded it to a line item entitled “Information and Communications,” naming it, “Before/After Care Programs Discussions.” (Emphasis mine.)

These school programs are now implemented by different non-profit organizations, and there is (was?) an administrative proposal to bring them all under one administrative roof, while replacing the non-profits with the schools’ own employees.  The savings associated with such a shift was reported to be $100,000 to the school district.

I have not verified whether the B-R BOE is, in fact, reevaluating these programs, but the revised agenda for this evening’s board meeting seems to point in this direction.  

We’ll find out tonight, when the board meets in the Wade Building at 8:00 PM.

Bridgewater Audience too Large, Mosque Hearing Postponed

Atty. Collins, Mayor Flannery & Chmn. Fross, huddle before meeting

In the words of Raymond’s brother, Robert, in the sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond,

“It was not meant to be.” 

The Bridgewater Township Planning Board meeting which was scheduled to begin this evening at 7:00 PM in the meeting room of the new Bridgewater Township Municipal Building was cancelled and tentatively rescheduled to Monday, February 28^th, pending arrangements for another venue that would hold more people.

Overflow audience begins to assemble before meeting.

An unexpectedly large group of Bridgewater residents showed up at the meeting to participate in a hearing at which a land development application for the building of a mosque was on the agenda and was to be discussed.

The application for the mosque was filed on behalf of the Chughtai Foundation and is for the change of use of a property located at 1475 Mountaintop Road, the former site of the Redwood Inn.  The application calls for the construction of a 14,570-square foot mosque, on the 7.6-acre site on Mountaintop Road.

Planning Board Chariman Alan Fross opens proceedings.

According to the website of the al Falah Center, the new masjid project’s priorities include “A house of worship; a weekend school; daycare; a full-time school; and a community center.”

The gathering of people at the Municipal Building this evening was the largest that I have experienced.  People were wall-to-wall in the room, another meeting room with closed-circuit TV covering the event was filled to capacity, and others overflowed into the hallways, according to Planning Board attorney, Thomas Collins.

Atty. Thomas Collins, citing overcapacity audience, closes short-lived meeting.
(Name plates are not lined up properly!)

The tentative February 28^th rescheduling is contingent on holding the meeting at the Bridgewater-Raritan High School Auditorium, or at the Somerset County’s Vocational & Technical School in Bridgewater.

(Click on any image for a larger view.)

Freedom to Worship

A Study in Glass and Ice

A crystal cross stands undisturbed on the inside of an eastward-facing window of our home, just above my writing desk.  It has rested there quietly for years, providing a personal venue for thoughtful reflection.

Yesterday morning, the freezing rain of the wintry mix that descended upon Bridgewater turned into an ice storm which coated the entire east side of the house, glazing its windows.

The ice-coated window pane created a vibrant backdrop into which the crystal cross, the glass of the window, the ice, and the ambient light all seemed to meld into a single dimension, one of hope and inspiration.

This, of course is a Christian symbol, reminding followers of this man called Jesus of the impact that his teachings continue to have upon the civilized world.  Yet, he was not a man of Western ideas, but a Jewish person imbued with the culture of the Middle East who, long before the spread of Western Civilization, had his greatest impact upon the people of the Mediterranean basin.

In the Quran, the keystone of Islam, this man called Jesus is noted as one of the great prophets.  But there is a major disconnect between that acknowledgement, and with the current practice of violence and death being perpetrated upon his Christian followers in the Middle East today. 

Media accounts of the past year have underscored the brutality and death being inflicted upon Christians in that region, particularly in Iraq, and recently in Egypt – followed closely by Pakistan and Afghanistan, all of which are presumed allies of the U.S.

As church bombings and individual killings by Islamic extremists persist in those countries, President Obama maintains a public silence on the problem, as has President Bush before him.  No U.S. politician seems to have the fortitude to confront the issue.

Meanwhile, in America, I can still observe and reflect upon the meaning of a Christian cross, calling to mind the man whom the Romans nailed upon it, something that I doubt I could do in peace and security, were I in one of those four countries. 

Sunrise

A winter sunrise in Bridgewater punctuates the start of  a new day.

Each day, whether we observe it or not, the sun will rise in our lives, always offering a new beginning – even if, on some of those days, we won’t see it behind the curtain of life’s troubling clouds.

Will we choose to let the quotidian light of a rising sun brighten the spirit of our lives, or will we choose to fall victim to the darkness of the night?

The choice is always ours to make.

Joan Chittister, OSB, a popular contemporary spiritual author, offers a thought about retired people that, I think, applies to those of all ages:  Chittister says that people have the “right to live until they die.”  (She isn’t talking about accumulating the toys of life, but about living a meaningful existence in this helter-skelter world.)

Live your life well.

Thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves – and of your soul.