Mendhams Mull Municipal Merger

One month ago, Mendham Township resident and current New Jersey Governor Chris Christie expressed his consternation about there being two Mendhams with duplicate administrations.

Since then, officials in both Mendham Township and Mendham Borough have agreed to look at the situation closer.

"We've been talking about the difficulties of putting a good budget together and talking about the need to share services, and in view of the township's need to explore every possible avenue for savings in these admittedly challenging times, it is appropriate to ask the township's residents whether or not they want the township committee to explore the possibility of a merger with Mendham Borough," said Mendham Township Mayor Rick Merkt.

Merkt said he felt the best way to accomplish this would be to place a non-binding referendum question on the ballot this fall as part of the general election process.

"If the township committee is agreeable, I propose that we ask our attorney to draft a ballot question for our review at the next meeting. I would want this to be phrased in the most neutral possible way, the question is to try and figure out what the public's [thoughts] on this are," Merkt said. 

Merkt said that he believes this is something that should not be done in isolation, and, in fact, he has already spoken with Mendham Borough Mayor Neil Henry.

"I did apprise him of the fact that we were going to take a look at this initiative because we didn't want them to be surprised by this," Merkt said.

Henry said that Merkt did give him a courtesy call last week in order to advise him that he would be proposing a non-binding referendum question at his township committee meeting. 

"I asked him to make sure the question was written objectively," Henry said. 

The rest of the committee was entirely on board with the idea, so Merkt moved the process forward by asking board attorney John Mills to draft a referendum.

Merkt said he hoped that Mendham Borough would consider a similar action on their part and Henry said his governing body would take up the issue.

"I will be discussing Mayor Merkt's proposal with our AD-Hoc Committee on Shared Services to decide how we might want to proceed on this matter," Henry said. "I will also be reaching out to Mayor Robert Davis of Chester Borough and Mayor William Cogger of Chester Township to determine why their consolidation talks failed after being enthusiastically embraced by both communities."

For his part, Merkt said this was an opportunity to find out how the residents of Mendham Township would feel about the issue.

"It's an interesting issue, and I think it's one that deserves to be explored at this time," Merkt said.

Merkt was also very clear that a referendum doesn't make it a done deal even if both towns agree.

"It is to authorize the two governments to talk to one another concerning this issue. Once again, the people would have the ultimate say as to whether something occurs," Merkt said. "So it's just the very, very beginning of the process."

Well Mendham? What do you think? Tell us in our comments below?