Mayor Discusses What's Ahead for Cinnaminson in 2014: Part II

Anthony Minniti was sworn in as mayor of Cinnaminson for the third time Monday night, alongside new Deputy Mayor John McCarthy. Minniti previously served as mayor in 2004 and 2010. 

For Minniti, a Cinnaminson native, 2014 is the final year of his fourth term on committee. The veteran committeeman spoke with Patch about what 2014 holds for the township.

This is the second and final part of our interview with the new mayor. You can read part one here. 

Patch: You had mentioned several months ago that you would like to see the pedestrian bridge over Route 130 utilized in some way, as a sort of welcome sign into Cinnaminson. Have you made any progress there?

Minniti: Getting through to DOT (Department of Transportation) is not the easiest thing. We’re still unable to get any sort of definitive direction with regard to who’s handling the bus stops. Something like this is apparently not high on their priority schedule. We don’t want to go out and just start decorating their property and antagonize them. I do think having local artists or students submit ideas—much like we did with the website and the slogan—and come up with something that creates that welcome feature is something we’re still looking at doing.

Patch: Is the township exploring any more opportunities for shared services?

Minniti: Too often people hear the term “shared services,” they immediately think it’s a positive. “Shared service. Why wouldn’t you do it? Save money.” That’s not the way it works. Sharing services is a buzzword that is used very carelessly. Whenever you enter into any sort of shared service agreement, you have to ensure that there is going to be, at minimum, a modest cost savings. But you have to ensure there’s not going to be any sacrifice in service level to your residents. We could do a lot of shared service that may save a lot of money, but I don’t think people would necessarily like the decrease in service. And we walk away from a lot of those sorts of shared service opportunities. I think there would be tremendous opportunity to do a shared service trash collection with Riverton or Moorestown, or Riverton and Moorestown. I’ve asked that committee take a look at that sort of shared service.

We do look at these type of opportunities, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. But we’re always looking to find ways to do it less expensively and to improve our service.

Patch: What are some of the other pressing issues facing the township in 2014? What other areas would you like to see progress on?

Minniti: One of the most pressing issues the township has had to deal with—and not just Cinnaminson, but all of them—is continuing to find ways to provide or improve levels of service within the 2 percent cap. It takes a lot of creative thinking to think of ways we can continue to maintain levels of service but remain an affordable community. One that we’ve just done—and it’s a perfect example of how Cinnaminson is able to continue to maintain services while reducing costs—is what we’ve done with combining the public safety director and administrator. By combining those two positions, we’ve now realized an annual savings of $50,000.

The quality of community that we’ve achieved and we’re continuing to achieve is just something special. And I couldn’t be more excited about 2014. It’s a very good year.