Making a List and checking it twice
By Albert B. Kelly
As we enter into the holiday season, like Bing Crosby, I occasionally
find myself dreaming of a white Christmas. Not so white that it snarls traffic for
days at a time, depletes the road salt budget, and causes downed powerlines,
but white enough to catch the spirit of the thing and at least hold it steady until
December 26th . But with global warming, I’m not holding my breath, but it
would still be nice to have a white holiday every few years.
Holiday snow notwithstanding, the season marks the end of
the year and for me, it is a time for reflection. Beyond the personal stuff
with family, are reflections on and about the community and these tend to be of
the “over the shoulder” variety looking backward. Like most folks, I try and
list accomplishments, but I often don’t get far because as soon as I make a
list and check it twice, I’m reminded of the things I meant to do, the things
half finished, or some things simply left undone.
In those moments, I wonder if the reach exceeds the grasp.
Yet as an elected official, I’d rather reach for more and come up short
occasionally than to content myself with a set of low expectations for myself
and the community. Maybe it’s my age and the fact that I have more seasons
behind me than I do ahead of me, but with each passing year I feel a greater
sense of urgency to get things done. The urgency is not just about the number
of things, but the quality of things. This idea of “quality over quantity” was
brought home to me recently when I happened upon the “implementation grid” at
the back of the City’s master plan.
If you’re not familiar with master plans, they ‘re documents
municipalities use to assess conditions at the time of writing but more
importantly, these plans guide the energies and resources of local government into
the future. Each master plan has “elements” such as housing, neighborhood
development, recreation, historic preservation, and land use to name a few. These
areas are examined in some detail with strategies and recommendations set down to
help guide local government in 5-10 year increments. In New Jersey, communities
must update their master plans at least every 10 years.
Bridgeton’s current plan was crafted in 2008 and in addition
to the elements on land use, recreation, and housing etc., it contains a grid
that summarizes each element’s strategies and recommendations, as well as providing
a timeframe for action. It was in starting the reexamination process in the
last few months that the implementation grid was dusted off and examined to see
what progress had been made, or not, since 2008.
I wish I could say that every recommendation had been
implemented or that each had been successful, well-funded, or easy to execute.
But that’s not the case. Some of the 100-plus items listed were redundant while
others were left open or undefined. That’s not criticism, just an
acknowledgment that many things overlap and the future is largely unknowable. Looking
over the list, steps were initiated and action taken on roughly 70% of the items.
For example, under open space and recreation, the grid
listed the need to increase recreational opportunities and provide ADA
accessibility. From 2008 to the present, such things as the Splash Park, new
basketball courts, overhaul of Johnson Reeves Playground; capping the landfill,
re-opening Sunset Lake, and providing ADA accessibility in the park all mark a
little progress.
In other areas, progress was marked by construction of slightly
more than two dozen single family homes as well as several hundred thousand
dollars dedicated to home rehabilitation projects; the leveraging of local and
State resources to complete 43 road paving and resurfacing projects, creating neighborhood
mini-parks, adding public art to some streetscapes, completing historic
preservation on key contributing buildings, and adopting new tools for more
robust code enforcement.
It’s our list and while we haven’t completed everything we’d
intended we also hadn’t been complacent. As the year concludes, I‘m reminded
that it’s not about checking off items on a list, it’s about quality and
motivation. The New Year will come and it will bring a new list an even greater
sense of urgency. But for now, it’s the holidays, a time to rest and reflect
and enjoy family- here’s to wishing you the very best this holiday season.