Mayoral Candidate Haas Pushes for Reduced Property Taxes, One-Seat Ride to NYC

Name:  Dave Haas
Age: 56
Address: 527 Shackamaxon Dr 
Length of Time in Westfield: 22 Years 
Education: BS. Engineering Physics from the University of Illinois, Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California
Family Life:  Married to Dana, my wife of 28 years.  Son Jacob is a graduate of the USNA and is serving on a destroyer in the Pacific.  Daughter Claire is a senior in neuroscience at NYU.  Both children completed 1stthrough 12th grades in the Westfield school system.
Professional Life: More than 20 years of industrial R&D experience currently teaching at NJIT
Community/Political Activities: Assistant coach Girls softball, two year president of the Westfield High School Ice Hockey Association, former member Rotary, member friends of the Library and Historical Society for many years.  Board of Adjustment for six years, town council for eight years.


1. Please list the three most important issues facing Westfield in this election and explain your position on each.

We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to achieve the goal of a one-seat (no change in Newark) train ride into Manhattan during rush hour.  There are no longer any technical barriers and we must marshal all of the town’s resources to pressure NJ Transit into deploying their dual-mode locomotives on our train line.  This will increase the property value of all of our homes.  I will have the town re-join the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition (RVRC), the primary group lobbying for this change.  I already have had a petition on my web site for people to lobby NJ transit more easily.  We’ve delivered almost 600 Westfield signatures to the RVRC to start their petition.  I will not change my support for this opportunity the way our current mayor did with the ARC tunnel which would have ensured us the single seat ride, dropping his support the moment Governor Christie dropped his.  We need information about this issue and links to the RVRC web site on our towns web site and facebook page and we should be shouting (tweeting) this message out to all of our residents. 

  We need to be more proactive in our efforts to reduce property taxes.  Every year we trim and trim but don’t change the overall cost structure.  I have been advocating for an energy audit and privatization of the operation of the conservation center for several years.  Both would save the town substantial amounts of money.  I will appoint an Ad-Hoc mayoral committee to explore all of the ways that towns around the state are sharing services with a mandate to find 10% savings.  We don’t have to accept these ideas, but let’s go find them and put them on the table for discussion.  I will insist that every capital expenditure occurs only after a clear justification is given and all of the costs, including maintenance, operating costs, insurance, etc. have been added up.  I will accept all offers of federal or state money that can help Westfield, unlike Mayor Skibitsky who refused federal Stimulus money set aside for Westfield in 2010.

Our fire department has been cut too deeply and it has affected our fire safety.  With a seven man platoon we always send out at least one of our trucks with only three fire fighters.  That is below the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) standard of four per truck.  That standard is a result of an OSHA requirement that there be four firefighters on site before anyone can go inside to fight a fire.  Two men go in and two are outside ready to go to their aid.  When it is your house that’s on fire you don’t want to watch the first crew of firemen wait for the second crew to arrive before they start to put out the fire.  This has happened too many times in Westfield, leading to unneeded damage and in one case the total loss of a house on Barchester when residents claim it was 20 or more minutes before the second truck was able to arrive.  We need to increase the resources the fire department has at their disposal.  First I will make restoring some the staffing to a level of 8-man platoons and I will push a recruiting effort to add to our depleted volunteer ranks. 

2. Why are you running for Mayor?

I think we live in a great town and I believe we need to continuously work hard to improve it, much as the Downtown Westfield Corporation and Sherry Cronin have done with our down town.  I’ve watched for eight years as we’ve been very stagnant and let opportunities to improve Westfield go by.  Some of the missed opportunities are; refusing federal stimulus money that was set aside for Westfield, not having an energy audit of municipal facilities even though the state pays for almost 100% of the cost, not creating bike paths after a citizen committee developed a plan for them, and pulling out of the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition in 2008 just as we most need their lobbying efforts to get a single seat ride to Manhattan for our train line. There are more.

I want to help lead Westfield to continuously make itself better.  I believe that requires fresh ideas and energy and new leadership.  That is why no mayor in Westfield history has served for more than six years prior to Mayor Skibitsky.  I will restore the Westfield tradition of limiting our mayors to only two terms.

3. Is there anything else you would like to add?