Downtown study deserves consideration
Try as they might, Matawan officials can't simply dismiss criticisms over the disappearance of a report on revitalization strategies for downtown as a baseless political stunt. At an Oct. 2 Borough Council meeting, Councilman Paul Buccellato questioned why copies of the Main Street Revitalization Study, commissioned a few years ago and completed in February, never made it to the hands of anyone else but Mayor Mary Aufseeser and Councilman Joseph Mullaney.

It should be noted in fairness that the Republican Buccellato is running against Aufseeser, a Democrat, for mayor, and after all this time has passed, he did bring it up publicly a month before the election. People can come to their own conclusions about his motivations. However, even if you believe he was trying to embarrass the mayor, you can't argue the issue doesn't have merit, if for no other reason than good taxpayer money funded the study and it was seemingly discarded without consideration.

Aufseeser was apologetic about the study falling by the wayside and assured other council members her administration was not deliberately withholding it from them. She also downplayed the report's significance.

"There was nothing in the report that could really help us with the continuation of this study and what we actually need for planning for the future of Main Street," Aufseeser said. "I don't think it went far enough. It had to do with parking. It didn't go far enough for what we actually need to bring Main Street back to life here."

We disagree. The study reads as 49 pages of food for thought on ways to help reinvigorate downtown Matawan. It's full of observations on what Matawan has to offer and what it has going against it. It contains demographics from several local towns and explains how that data relates to the borough. It offers information on the positives and the pitfalls of setting up a business improvement district, a subject which has come up in Matawan from time to time. The report also details how other struggling downtowns have turned it around, like the widely acclaimed transformation of "Dead Bank" to Red Bank.

Don't just take our word for it. Go check out a copy of the study at borough hall and make up your own mind about its usefulness.

Many members of that council were elected in recent years with the downtown a major issue of their platforms. There were some encouraging signs a few years ago, such as the emergence of the Matawan Alliance, which has done a fantastic job of planning public events to draw people to the area. But in terms of tangible signs of commercial growth, C-Town's move to the vacant Harris Hardware building has been about it, and that was hardly met with universal applause in the community.

There's a lot of work to do in downtown Matawan. If progress is to be made, a thoughtful and taxpayer-funded study like this one should not be ignored.