Neptune City Moving in Right Direction

by Councilman Brian Thomas

Borough of Neptune City

As time is seemingly flying by, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the great things happening across Neptune City. Since taking office this past January, we have made some major strides in moving Neptune City forward coupled with improvements to our parks, infrastructure, digital services, communication and policies all the while being financially responsible and having a municipal budget with an overall reduction in costs to our residents.

You may have seen the upgrades to Memorial Park such as ADA beach access and coming equipment as well as a future gazebo. First Responders’ Park on West Sylvania has gone through quite the change and we are hopeful that it will be completed in the next few months. Joe Freda Park is also going through some upgrades as is Adam’s Field which will see improvements to the ball fields, pathways, and basketball courts this spring.

Our summer “Movie in the Park” series and Family Fun Nights were a huge success, providing countless hours of safe, enjoyable entertainment for kids, families, and residents. I have to give a big thank you to our Community Center, DPW and Board of Recreation for making it such an amazing time. We hope that even more families take part as we will look to shift locations of events to different areas in the borough next year.

We have taken a very hands-on approach to being not only transparent, but inclusive. In the past few months we have become a Veteran Owned Business friendly community and designated Veteran Only Parking across the borough as a small way of showing appreciation to our Military members.

Recently, we made efforts to help bring awareness to the problem of addiction plaguing so many families. As of last week, Neptune City became 9^th municipality in the area to named a Stigma-Free Community to show support for Mental Health Awareness.

We are also excited that the groundwork is being laid for the coming “Neptune City Business Connection” (NCBC) which will seek to support our local small businesses community members. We continuously encourage everyone to shop local when they can and post your support on social media with the hashtag #NCBCKeepItLocal.

Even with the ongoing pandemic, we have not let it slow down our momentum or quality of services we provide in the Borough. A good reason is through the work of our amazing police officers, public works department, employees, business administrator and leadership at the helm. Demonstrating that you can achieve good things without placing a heavier burden on taxpayers. As we move into the coming months we seek to keep this momentum as we look for new, innovative ways aid our residents and local businesses.