As an elected Member of the Planning Commission, I am outraged at the attempt by former Planning Chair Jerry Monaghan to deceive the public. I am not at all surprised by the comments by mayor-wannabe and land schemer Bob Kostes who has again advertised that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Last week, they complained that the Town isn’t spending enough money on consultants to update the Town’s Plan of Conservation and Development, the POCD.
Let me explain.
The POCD is an inventory and road map of the Town’s land-use policies, development patterns and preservation, recreation and future municipal needs. The legal plan, about which they both appear to be ignorant, is the Zoning Map. They don’t get that the Zoning Map evolved from the strategies outlined in the POCD. Contrary to Kostes’ assertion, the POCD is obviously not a “business plan.” If Kostes hasn’t gotten this basic information by now, he’s too long a study and ought to quit the Mayoral race immediately. The Town can’t afford on-the-job training.
What the Town must do soon is review the POCD, not re-write it and there is plenty of time to get the job done. Spending huge sums of taxpayer money to review the POCD isn’t going to get better results. The Planning Commission interviewed various planning consultants and chose Planimetrics for its demonstrated expertise.
Should you pay any attention to Jerry Monaghan? You be the judge and then decide if you should vote for him in November. I won’t.
During the Peitler administration, Monaghan served with ethics-challenged David Hubbard on the Route 7 advisory committee that acted as liaison between the Town and the State. What you see and experience today is, to a great extent, its work product including the traffic light where Hubbard owns property that resulted in an ethics complaint against him and his subsequent resignation. Now we are experiencing the hazards of the design. Thank you, Jerry Monaghan.
I’ve written before about hypocrisy in New Milford and Jerry Monaghan is a superstar in this regard. Monaghan was the Chairman of the Planning Commission in the late 90s when the POCD was updated. Now he and Kostes are complaining about strip malls on Route 7. It was Monaghan who then helped engineer the Plan and now he’s complaining. That’s the ultimate hypocrisy. If Kostes doesn’t like strip malls, blame it on his friend Jerry. If Kostes wants to try to do something about it, run for Zoning instead of for Mayor.
Route 7 is the largest commercial corridor that the Town has for a tax base. The Route 7 North and Route 202 corridors are limited for commercial use and they should be. All this was established 36 years ago when Zoning was adopted and Kostes was in grade school. Any further commercial expansion along those northern corridors will only intrude into residential areas.
Due to Monaghan’s failure to understand State Statutes, New Milford residents hold him accountable for what became an embarrassing moment in the planning Commission’s history that a subdivision off the Carmen Hill area was awarded automatic approval.
Also, ask Monaghan about a passbook bond that was lost along with several letters of credit that had expired leaving the Town exposed to financial liabilities with various subdivision improvements.You want more? Ask him about his zoning violation. How could a Town Official violate zoning regulations? And the list goes on.
These are some of the reasons why he was rejected by both major political parties. Those parties rejected Kostes also. Now the Kostes-Monaghan Team, promoted by their spokesman and thankfully short-termed former Mayor Bob Gambino who created chaos and confusion, are back as a minority party called New Milford First consisting of political malcontents, neophytes and rejects. It endorses people for re-election who have deplorable attendance records.
Bob Kostes’ claim to fame was running a computer software business with a 5 million dollar budget. The Town’s municipal budget is almost 35 million. It seems to me that Bob Kostes needs more experience...he’s only 15% of the way there. Taxpayers cannot afford on-the-job training.
The whole group should be “first” to take the Hart Bus to Danbury.
Please get out and vote on November 6.
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