Politics & Government

Freeholder Candidates: Nordstrom & Quatrone

Patch asked each to answer a questionnaire. Here is how they answered.

After a left the incumbent as the GOP's candidate, the race for a Morris County Freeholder seat in the Nov. 8 election pits Margaret Nordstrom (R-Long Valley) against Truscha Quatrone (D-Montville).

Patch asked each candidate to fill out the questionnaire below. Here are their responses.

Margaret Nordstrom (R-Long Valley)

Age: 63

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Occupation: Freeholder

Previous elected or appointed positions: Washington Township Committeeperson, 1991-2002; Mayor, 1994-99; Vice Mayor, 1992-93, 2001; NJ State Planning Commission, 2000-02; NJ Clean Air Council 1998-2000

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Current elected or appointed positions: Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders, September 1999-present (Freeholder Director, 2006-2008; Freeholder Deputy Director, 2004-05); NJ Historic Sites Council, 1996-present; Morris County Soil Conservation District Supervisor 2009-present

Other Community associations: Dean’s Advisory Council: The Graduate School of Rutgers, New Brunswick, 2002-present; Arts Council of the Morris Area, 2000-present

What town do you live and how long have you lived there? Washington Township for 27 years

What do you see as the most pressing issues in a coming term, and what would you do about them?

  1. Taxes. As we know all too well, New Jersey has become a state that has become unaffordable to many people, particularly seniors, because of high taxes. Five years ago, I moved the county to program-based budgeting, to allow us to prioritize the services we provide and to identify those that were redundant, obsolete, or not cost effective. We also instituted a hiring freeze at that time. As a result, in the ensuing period the county work force has decreased by 16 percent. We have also reduced the county’s overall tax levy for the past three years while maintaining the high level of service that our residents depend on. I plan on continuing this kind of analysis and action to make sure the county operates at the highest level of efficiency possible.
  2. Economic development. It is very important that Morris County has a strong economic base to take some of the tax burden off residents, and also to provide good jobs. During the Corzine administration, I became alarmed at the number of companies leaving the state and so I began an informal “listening to businesses” program in partnership with the Morris County Chamber of Commerce. We wanted to let our corporations know how important they were to the county and also to talk to them about county resources that they might want to access. This initiative was so well received that in January of this year, I formed the Morris County Economic Development Advisory Committee. This formal entity will provide the basis for improving communications between the business community and county government. Currently we are working on developing partnerships between businesses and our academic institutions such as County College of Morris and the Morris County School of Technology. The goal here is for these institutions to create employee-training programs to meet the specific needs of our businesses. Going forward, we are beginning to reach out to local chambers of commerce and economic development committees so that we may help municipalities move their own economic development objectives forward.
  3. Re-structuring of government services. Because county and municipal governments are under a 2 percent hard cap on raising tax levies, they will be looking to reduce costs through consolidation and shared services based on economies of scale. In recent years, Morris County has executed shared services agreements with Sussex and Warren counties for the use of our facilities such as the juvenile detention center and the youth shelter.  We are currently expanding our public safety training academy so that more towns will be able to use our dispatch system. All of these initiatives save taxpayer dollars and I look forward to moving forward with these types of arrangements. Future possibilities include merging the sheriff’s department and park police, and also video arraignment.

What’s one fact about you that most voters probably don’t know? I can tap dance. Not tap dance around the issues. With my feet.

Truscha Quatrone (D-Montville)

Age: 65

Occupation: Retired field engineer in telecom industry

Previous elected or appointed positions: Municipal Democratic Committee Chair, Montville Township

Current elected or appointed positions: Municipal Democratic Committee Chair, Montville Township

Other community associations: Montville Women's Club, Morris County Democratic Committee, Sierra Club, TCA, Morris United Women's Group

What town do you live in, and how long have you lived there? Towaco

How long have you lived in the county? 22 years

What do you see as the most pressing issues in a coming term, and what would you do about them? The most pressing issue facing Morris County is our taxes. Our county and residential taxes have risen every year over the past 10 years. We must implement share services and merged school districts. As a freeholder, you are in a position to personally reach out to the 39 municipalities' elected officials and residents to show them the savings that are attainable through shared services within the county. Sharing many items like IT departments, shade tree control, DPW heavy equipment purchases, all office purchases in bulk, county fleet maintenance, parks and recreational maintenance, regionalized health service, these and many more (low hanging fruit items) could save Morris County over $50 million annually. This could be a return in taxes to the municipalities of $1.2 million dollars annually. Merging our 40 school districts would save hundreds of millions of dollars and lower everyone's residential taxes, making Morris County affordable for all of our residents. We are running out of time. We must get this done or Morris County and the state of New Jersey will be in so much red ink we will never recover.  As a freeholder you are in a position to help facilitate and guide elected officials to implementing share services to overcome the “home rule” mentality. The residents of Morris County deserve a freeholder who is representing their interest rather than the “status quo” of the party.

The Morris County Freeholders have an obligation to make sure that our educational funding keeps pace with enrollment demands. We do NOT need to increase taxes to do this; we need to allocate our budgeted money differently.  There are areas that we spend too much money on; the salary and wages of our jail employees is $17, million annually. We do not hold hardened criminals in our jail; it is a holding facility for trials for state and federal and detention center for minor offenses. If we were to remove the sick pay provision for county sheriff employees we could save the county millions of dollars over a 10-year period.

Morris County has the best OEM offices in the state. But they had to ask our many senior, civic and religious group for help in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. These groups all stepped up to the plate to help our many citizens who were affected by these storms. We must help them with grants for their survival in the future so they can help us. Our budgeting process must including long range planning. Business would never survive and grow with annual budgeting; it is reactionary thinking without protection for emergencies.

The political dialog in New Jersey today seems to be about blaming someone else for the financial problems we are faced with. The best approach to fixing problems is through solutions, not finger pointing and rhetoric.  


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