Montgomery Twp Committee Candidate 2021
► Marvin Schuldiner (D)
► Marvin Schuldiner (D)
Marvin Schuldiner serves as deputy mayor of Montgomery Township. In his professional life, he is an accredited professional mediator specializing in commercial, divorce/family, and elder mediation. He is also the former owner, organizer, and manager of horse racing and breeding partnerships.
Schuldiner has lived in Montgomery for seven years. He earned a master’s of business administration in finance from Michigan State University and bachelor’s in engineering from Rutgers.
His wife, Francine Pfeffer, works for the New Jersey Education Association. Their son Eli is a student in the Montgomery public schools.
Why are your running as a Democratic candidate?
I share the values of the party. I think we’ve seen the values of the Republican Party over the last several years have put us in a scary place as a country.
What are the three top issues in Montgomery Township?
1. Affordability
As a member of the Economic Development Committee (EDC), we have been trying to keep our small businesses in business during this difficult retail environment. Businesses pay taxes in the town and it helps keep the property taxes down, which help make the town more affordable.
So we are trying to encourage affordability in a fiscally responsible way. And we have one of the best credit ratings in the state, which shows we have been fiscally responsible.
We also sponsored a restaurant week to help generate business. And, we are having an arts week in October to help the arts community.
2. Transparency
We have changed a lot of things in the three years we have been in charge. The most visible is, that when COVID hit, we began sending out a daily e-bulletin.
We were getting news daily, and it was needed then. Right now the e-bulleting is twice a week.
We’ve also done several town hall meetings. Prior to COVID, we had a town hall on the new municipal building. We also did town halls on: Development and Cannabis. I think that was a marked departure from the Republicans who came before us.
We invited input from the community members and I thought that was valuable.
3. Quality of life
This one has sub-catagories. The first one is, the Route 206/518 gateway intersection to Montgomery, which has falling down buildings. COVID slowed down my progress in getting that re-developed. The developers I reached out to were not being paid rent because of the pandemic.
We need to have the right type of businesses at the intersection. What is it that people have to leave Montgomery to get?
We don’t have any high-end restaurants or South Asian restaurants, which is a shock to me.
What about a trampoline park or a ball pit? We don’t really have a place for older kids to have birthday parties.
I would love to see a brewpub or a winery. All this things are really popular, but we don’t have any. So we are doing a study to see how we could redevelop the area. What we don’t want is just another strip mall.
Digital Infrastructure is also a problem. We know we have people in town who have no Internet whatsoever. We need high-speed Internet and we need to get the 5G infrastructure in place.
Also, mental health is an issue. It’s been a silent issue but, since I’ve been on township committee, we’ve had three or four suicides. That number should be zero. To the degree that we are able, we should be helping people.
Why are you running for township committee?
We still have a lot of work to do. If it is the last thing I do, I want that 518/206 intersection looking good.
What do you love most about Montgomery?
The people is the first thing that comes to mind. I have been here seven years now and I have a ton of friends. The second thing would be all of our green space. ■