Mayor's Report: February 2024

Middlesex Residents,

Welcome to 2024. For me, it has been a bit of a whirlwind since being sworn in on January 2nd. As I make the jump from a tenured Councilman to Mayor, there is a bit of an adjustment as the roles are distinctly different. So far, the transition has been rather seamless as I have had many conversations prior to taking office with former Mayor John Madden, who continues to be a valuable information source for me and the Borough. I would also like to welcome to the Council Kevin Dotey. He and I have a long history together and I look forward to his positive contribution to Middlesex. Finally, congratulations to Mike Conahan who is the Council President for 2024. We have had many conversations and I look forward to a year of planned progress. 

For 2024, we are working to organize our methods of governance to make it more accountable and transparent. We are moving to a Councilmatic system of departmental oversight versus the current representative form. The Councilmatic form has departmental oversight handled by a committee of three (of which one is the designated leader), conducting meetings with the respective departments. Every department is involved with half of the Borough Council, which will greatly add to transparency and in my experience leads to a deeper level of discussion at the departmental level. These discussions usually help to vet out programs and proposals and lead to a better understanding of needs and priorities enabling better decisions.

As with every year, 2024 will have its fair share of challenges. To me, challenges bring an opportunity to do things better. Our goals for 2024 are to resolve some of the current long term, outstanding issues. We will be fiscally conservative in these unsure times to weather any storm that may come our way. To that end, we will prepare a budget that meets our needs and maximizes our resources as much as possible and, most importantly, stick to it.

That’s all for now. We have a lot to do, and time is at a premium. We are working to do what is right for Middlesex. 

Please come to the council meetings. It’s the best way to keep current on things. 

Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk