Bridgewater Township Governance – Hayes, Moench, and Henderson-Rose for Stability, Transparency and Robust Leadership

Updated, November 5, 2015, 2:36 PM

On Tuesday, November 3^rd, you get to vote in the Bridgewater Township Mayoral and Council elections.  For those of us who make Bridgewater our home, this may turn out to be the most influential among the other three contests on the ballot; namely, those of the schools, county, and state elections.

This is one of the few times in Bridgewater history that there has been a well-organized, concentrated push on behalf of new faces to oust all three incumbents.  This one is not a sleeper.

Competition in elections is good but, onto itself, an opposing field of candidates does not necessarily provide a compelling basis to replace an ongoing, effective leadership such as that which exists in Bridgewater.

The candidates striving to push out incumbents Mayor Dan Hayes and Council Members Matthew Moench and Christine Henderson-Rose simply have not come up with the beef, despite a bevy of claims, most of which don’t hold water.

RECOMMENDATION:  Although change is at times desirable, this is not the moment for it in Bridgewater.  It will not improve conditions here, will not change your real estate taxes for the better, and will disrupt a well-managed team running this township, one that is doing much better than most Bridgewaterites may suspect.

Fall in Somerset County, Late but Gorgeous

Color along Washington Valley Road. (Bergeron Image)

Last week has been one for refreshing my skills with photography.  I have two cameras, a Nikon D7000 series DSLR, and a Nikon Coolpix P600.  Both have quality sensors, the heart of any good digital camera.

 

The Coolpix is a light, smaller “bridge camera,” the designation used to describe the difference in size and heft between the larger, heavier DSLRs and the much smaller slide-in-your-pocket cameras that are now becoming endowed with much more power and quality.

Maybe, someday, a genius entrepreneur will combine all the photo-taking qualities of those three camera types into a single smartphone.  Several decades ago, who would have dreamed that pixels generated by a chip would consign celluloid film to the museums of photography?

Expert: The “coach barns are more significant than the house.”

Two bugs on a flower!  Captured while I was on a walk at Duke Farms.

Updated Oct. 18, 9:46 AM

After following this summer’s accounts of  the attempts by Michael Catania, Executive Director of the Duke Farms Foundation to destroy the mansion sitting on the 2,700-acre site built by James Buchanan Duke, and inherited by his daughter, Doris, I was appalled to learn yesterday that he finally prevailed.

I was even further dismayed to see how easily the Hillsborough Historic Commission (HHC) caved in, voting 6-l in favor of the foundation to raze the 65,000 square foot mansion which has been the estate’s anchor and its principal jewel, designated as an historical site.