We all love our Memorial Park, the green stretch behind our library, with its playground, pool, benches, lawn, and ball field, lined with big trees.

But now our Park is threatened by a Borough Council plan to sacrifice the green, vacant lot right next door – which the Borough bought for recreation – to build four apartments and a parking lot. 

Here’s how that Borough-owned lot next to the ball field looks now:

Here’s what the Borough Council aims to build there asap:

Will that project pay property taxes to the Borough? No. It’s tax exempt.

That plan will also allow construction of 223 new apartments on the east end of Main Street, backing up traffic and  jeopardizing the water supply in a wellhead protection zone that also includes Summit and Millburn:

What’s worse, despite having had at least fifteen months to come up with alternatives, our Mayor & Council never considered any. They left it to the last n minute and dropped it on the Planning Board, hallf of which knows this is wrong, but may be steamrolled vor lack of a handy alternative.

Now the proponents of this nightmare simply insist that that Plan was the only way to meet a June 30 deadline set by state law. 

That’s pure nonsense. NJ law does not require the Borough to make any such sacrifices.

Ands yet, that’s exactly what the Planning Board will do on June 18th unless you act now:

• Drop everything right now and tell your elected officials NOT to sacrifices scarce Borough-owned recreation space but to meet the June 30 deadline while preserving the chance to vet a menu of alternatives at public meetings, before the Borough is locked into final choices: 

cdempsey@chathamborough.org            jmathiasen@chathamborough.org

kkoronkiewicz@chathamborough.org    itreloar@chathamborough.org

jstrickland@chathamborough.org   bhargrove@chathamborough.org

khay@chathamborough.org   mayorcouncil@chathamborough.org

• Bring family, friends & neighbors to the Planning Board meeting, Wednesday, June 18th, 7:30 pm, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Ave. Bring everyone, regardless of residence or age. (Use the north entrance. Take the elevator to the upper level.)
  
• Write the Planning Board via Facebook or c/o Clerk, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue:

Thomas Belding         Sophia Calcaterra-Hull         Susan Favate                William Heap  

Susie Robertson          Matthew Wagner                   Jonathan Wilcox          Gregory Xikes

• Sign the petition:  https://chng.it/GN4yhK8sGT

For background, sources, hot links, and news, please visit ChathamChoice.org