12/10/2025
At the Monday, December 8th council meeting, the Flemington Borough council voted unanimously to pass Resolution 2025-211:
A RESOLUTION SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIAL NEEDS AND SUPPORTIVE HOUSING AND DIRECTING THE BOROUGH COUNCIL TO EXPLORE FEASIBILITY AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
I am tremendously grateful to my peers for seeing the value of such efforts. Below are my comments from Monday night regarding the resolution:
At the last council meeting, I did mention that of all the work I've done, I did have one regret. And I get that it's complicated to get done, but I wondered: what could I have done? Or maybe done better to get some sort of special needs housing squared away here? And I get it. I have no illusions. But I'm the kind of guy who can’t sit on something like this.
This resolution is simple: It says that Flemington supports having special needs housing here, right here in the seat of good old Hunterdon County. It says that our neighbors with disabilities deserve a place in this community. Not by exception, but by intention.
The subject of housing causes a lot of debate. Some of it can get fierce, some of it can get wildly fierce. But lost in a lot of this argumentation are the specifics, the finer details, the finer points. Many of you know, my oldest son Mason. He's autistic. He's on the autism spectrum. He's considered profoundly autistic. And he is a member of the Flemington Borough community.
In a previous era, people like my son spent their lives hidden away in their homes or in institutions after reaching a certain age. But those days are over. Unfortunately, families like mine know full well that the options are still extremely limited.
Once our kids turn twenty-one and they move beyond a family's ability to care for them, the concerns are quite extraordinary. As a lot of you know, being a parent is difficult work, but being the parent of a special needs kid is a whole different ball game. My son and those like him deserve a community where they can grow up and live with dignity.
And let me be clear, because I think sometimes people don't understand this: Special needs housing is not a burden on a town. It's actually a blessing. It's the sign that a community knows how to care for its own. It's the mark of a town that is not afraid to do the right thing and to show compassion to its most vulnerable members. And yes, sometimes it requires patience. These kids do. These people do. And it requires planning. But it also gives back more than it asks for.
I've heard the concerns over the years. We talk about housing a lot in this town. We hear about the traffic, the parking, the neighborhood character. I get it. These are legitimate concerns. Changing things up is always uncomfortable, but a diversity of housing is what this is about.
Providing a diversity of housing in the county seat where a lot of services are is, to me, a no-brainer. It's common sense. Hunterdon County is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States of America. That is a cold hard fact and it is undeniable. Why shouldn't our most vulnerable residents have access to a decent life after their immediate caregivers are too old or no longer here to take care of them? If you've never had a child with disabilities or a parent with a profound mental health condition or a sibling who needs supportive services, you may not see the world the same way families like ours do. And that's okay. That's why I'm presenting this resolution tonight.
So, let me explain to folks who have any reservations here. Families like mine aren't here to disrupt the neighborhood. We're trying to survive it. We're trying to stay together in it. and we're trying to give our kids a future in it. Supportive housing doesn't ruin neighborhoods, it strengthens them.
You can ask our police, fire, and rescue squad. Supportive housing reduces crisis calls. Fact. It keeps people stable, keeps them close to support networks instead of isolating them. It makes the community more complete. It doesn't weaken it.
This resolution does something very modest yet very meaningful. It says that we support this kind of housing.
It says that we're ready to explore funding, partnerships, and opportunities. It says that we're not going to shove our most vulnerable residents to the side and pretend that everything is okay.
I've seen many times during my time as a councilman here that this community helps each other out in big and small ways. And that's totally normal. That's human. That's our impulse. We're just kind of engineered to care about each other. This is our chance to show that degree of caring on a much larger scale. My time on council is ending, but I wanted to use one of my last votes to reflect the very best of who I tried to be in this role: Someone who listened, someone who cared, someone who tried to leave the place a little better than he found it.
And I want this vote to reflect the very best of Flemington Borough.
This resolution does not approve any project. It does not bind the town financially. It doesn't change zoning. What it does is far more important. It tells families like mine, "We see you." It tells residents with disabilities, “you belong here.” It tells our future that, when asked to, we chose compassion.
To those of you out there who may be in the special needs community, if you never get to hear, read, see, or sense, feel in any way these words, please know that you are seen. You are felt every single day by us. We're your friends, your neighbors, your teachers, your helpers, your aids. We're your companions, your compadres. We are the police officer who helped, the fireman who let you touch that truck. The rescue squad member who gave you that stuffed animal because soft things feel good. We are the understanding faces in the store and the friendly faces opening up the school bus door. We're your sisters, your brothers, your aunts, and your uncles. We're your cousins, your nieces, your nephews, or your grandparents. We're your fathers, and we're your mothers. And we will never stop caring about you.
Tonight, I'm asking my colleagues in this community to affirm that Flemington is a place where every single person matters. So, let's be that town.
Thank you.
