Mayor's New Year Address
Good evening and welcome.
2025 has been a busy year in Middlesex.
I want to thank outgoing Councilmen Jeremiah Carnes and Bobby Dessino for their service. I’d like to welcome Jennifer Clock and Shannon Quinn. You will find it's a different world on the dais, but I'm confident that you will make a positive contribution to our Borough.
I’d like to thank my wife, Jan, my family and all the families that contribute to the success of Middlesex. They are the ones that make the most sacrifices, as anything we do for the town is at a direct cost in terms of time away from them. Their willingness to see the big picture leave us forever grateful for their love and support.
I am starting my 12th year as a part of the Middlesex leadership. I’ve seen a lot of things happen in that time and we are on a good path.
In 2025, we’ve made excellent progress in a number of areas.
We had a very conservative municipal budget with a very modest 2.5% increase. We continue to chip away at issues having added to the surplus and plan to continue on this path. This continues to be a cornerstone of our fiscal stability as well as helping us to secure the best financing rates to save cost. We continue to address and resolve outstanding issues, and in the balance, be as fiscally conservative as possible.
The use of the Councilmatic Committees has been successful in our efforts to be transparent, accountable, efficient and communicative.
We opened the Middlesex history room at the library.
Once again, we held a Town Hall Meeting to openly discuss where we are and where we want to go as a Borough. Our residents need to be heard, and this meeting highlighted several areas where we can improve. We will do this again in 2026.
The flood wall project continues to slowly progress and has removed approximately 90 houses from our taxable base with more to come. The flood wall we constructed at Heather Lane is doing the job to stave off erosion and preserve the neighborhood. We continue to push the related parties involved with the flood wall project. The sooner that it is completed the better, but we are still years away with some significant hurdles coming as part of the plan includes construction of a flood gate on Route 28, which will certainly create some logistical issues, that it is our intention to minimize.
We have upgraded our Zoning and Code Enforcement to a full-time position. We are seeing progress and we will see the benefits as we have enhanced enforcement to keep our Borough looking at its best.
We completed the streetscape project in front of the High School and Mountainview Park, and are working on securing grants for another phase of streetscape improvements. These grants are at no cost to the Borough and are a pure benefit to us. Smart planning and purchasing enabled us to purchase some new holiday decorations this year.
Our Environmental Commission had a productive year receiving recognition from the State as the “Rookie of the Year”, as well as reaching Bronze level status for their environmental work. This is a huge honor to the Borough and represented countless hours by the Environmental Commission to earn this recognition. As you look around the Borough you can see evidence of their thumbprint on the Borough.
Victor the Rock Snake once again was back, and had quite a lengthy level of participation.
We used our Hydro Rake several times this year and the condition of the lake continues to improve. We've been able to verify this through testing.
We are in the middle of replacing the bathrooms and upgrading the Mountainview Park Grove area despite the delay caused by the playground equipment fire.
We have completed our plan for Victor Crowell Park, so that we can submit for grant funding to bring the concepts to reality. The plan presents a framework, and not a definitive final project but is a critical piece for us to secure this funding.
As brought up in our Town Hall, volunteerism continues to be a challenge and a need. Residents need to get involved. Without volunteers, we will be put in a position to cut programs or hire professionals to provide essential services. Please consider helping out.
Two biggies for 2025 were the contract negotiations, and the health coverage change.
During 2025, we successfully completed fair negotiations with our 3 main Unions, the Police, DPW, and White Collar in addition to our Chief of Police and the DPW Superintendent and the Deputy Superintendent. No easy task and in the end, fair for our employees as well as the Borough.
For the first time in a few years, we changed our health insurance. This saved our employees and the Borough a considerable amount of money. We are continuing to be proactive here, as the excessive recent state insurance increase of 36% has once again presented a challenge to us in terms of budgeting.
Our “Pillars of Middlesex” were:
Jason Bond
Beverly D Weber
James Benson
Lee Poandl
William Winkleman
Our “Citizen of the Year” was: Clare Levourne
But now in 2026 and despite the successes we have some significant challenges and some outstanding challenges facing this Borough.
A mantra we had in place last year was a proper budget process and adherence to the plan. It worked well, and we will continue down this path in 2026. With excessive increases in health insurance, 36% for 2026 and a NJ inflation rate around 3.5%, and a continued lack of adjustment in state aid it will be impossible to have another under the inflation rate increase of 2.5%. Our efforts are always to be as conservative as possible but with the cuts we made last year it is unrealistic to get there again this year without a reduction in services. We continue to look at all insurance rates, but we need to have a year under our belt for the health insurance to be able to shop for better rates.
Our investigation into the sewers will be a priority for 2026. We really need to know where we stand here. This may take a couple of years, but we will have a plan when we are done.
Two other public outstanding issues are flooding and Lake Creighton. We continue to work with and press the urgency and necessity of these projects and these will take years to complete, but we will continue to push the state agencies to make our needs a priority.
We continue to lose revenue from the flood wall project. A strategy of controlled redevelopment is going to be crucial for the success of Middlesex going forward. I would hope to have one project underway and another in the wings by the end of 2026. It's no easy task, but we are starting to garner interest as word gets out that we are open for business.
By using a grant writing service in 2 years through 2025, we have secured nearly one million dollars in grants for the Borough. We have been very aggressive in this area, and right now we have approximately six million dollars of applications in. We may not always be successful but as my grandmother would say - "You don't ask-you don't get".
The Borough Council, the Fire Department, OEM, Rescue Squad and many of the Committees and Commissions in Middlesex Borough are made up of volunteers. These volunteers are the backbone of what makes our Borough tick. Unfortunately, volunteerism is at a low the past few years with some of our key areas being down a significant number of members, challenging their ability to be effective. Maybe it is a matter of people not having the knowledge that many of these services are provided by volunteers. Or perhaps a culture that is being brought up on Door Dash, Uber Eats and other similar services not realizing that these Borough services that are free now will no longer be able to be sustained without an influx of new members. This will happen quickly, especially as the older members age out. Middlesex residents need to take notice and get involved. We are reaching a critical point and low volunteerism will result in us paying for things we now take for granted that are free.
Mel Robbins has said "Optimism isn't believing nothing bad will happen. It's about believing in your ability to handle it when it does." I'm optimistic about 2026. We have made many changes in 2025 to plan and prepare for the opportunities and challenges the future brings.
For our dedicated employees and selfless volunteers, and our residents, I’d like to wish everyone a happy healthy and prosperous new year.
Thank You,
Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk